The overarching question imparting urgency to this exploration is: Can U.S.-Russian contention in cyberspace cause the two nuclear superpowers to stumble into war? In considering this question we were constantly reminded of recent comments by a prominent U.S. arms control expert: At least as dangerous as the risk of an actual cyberattack, he observed, is cyber operations’ “blurring of the line between peace and war.” Or, as Nye wrote, “in the cyber realm, the difference between a weapon and a non-weapon may come down to a single line of code, or simply the intent of a computer program’s user.”
Please join the Intelligence Project for a lunch seminar with Gill Bennett OBE, former Chief Historian of the British Foreign Commonwealth Office, on "Spies, Lies, and Disinformation: How History Can Help."
In this seminar, Gill will speak about the changing landscape of disinformation in the digital age. Specifically, she will explore how using intelligence tools can help with detecting & protecting against disinformation and how despite significant advancements in technology, lessons from historical efforts to counter disinformation can help us today.
Gill Bennett MA, OBE, FRHistS was Chief Historian of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office from 1995-2005, and Senior Editor of the FCO’s official history of British foreign policy, Documents on British Policy Overseas. As a historian in Whitehall for over forty years, she provided historical advice to twelve Foreign Secretaries under six Prime Ministers, from Edward Heath to Tony Blair.
A specialist in the history of secret intelligence, she published a ground-breaking biography, Churchill’s Man of Mystery: Desmond Morton and the World of Intelligence, in 2006. She was also part of the research team working on the official history of the Secret Intelligence Service by the late Professor Keith Jeffery, published in 2010. She is a Senior Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Gill is now involved in a range of research projects, including some for various government departments. Publications include Six Moments of Crisis: Inside British Foreign Policy (2013), and her most recent book, The Zinoviev Letter: The Conspiracy That Never Dies (2018). She is now working on a study of espionage, deception and disinformation.
