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.”
Speaker: Calder Walton, Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy, International Security Program
The use and abuse of intelligence makes headlines and attracts news commentary almost every day today—from disclosures about "mass surveillance" by the NSA contractor Edward Snowden, to lingering controversies about the British government's "dodgy dossier" concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, and now the "dirty dossier" on President Donald Trump.
Despite a rolling commentary on intelligence matters and scandals across the media today, historical studies on international relations in the twentieth century are bizarrely silent when it comes to intelligence. Despite voluminous declassified intelligence records available on both sides of the Atlantic, the overwhelming majority of even the most recently published histories of the Cold War omit the role of intelligence. Scholars and policymakers are supposed to believe that, although intelligence matters for governments today, it did not in the past.
This seminar, based on the speaker's current research, will correct this misapprehension. Stretching from the Second World War to the early Cold War, it will examine the origins, evolution, stresses, and strains of British and U.S. intelligence relations—the closest intelligence relationship between two powers in history. Using a series of case studies, from signals intelligence-sharing agreements to atomic espionage and covert action during Britain's end of empire, it will explore the impact that British and U.S. intelligence had on post-war international relations. While collaborating together in unprecedented ways, it will be shown that, in some instances in the post-war years, British and U.S. intelligence worked at cross-purposes—and were also disastrously penetrated by their opponents, Soviet intelligence. This seminar will also offer some (arguably much-needed) policy-relevant historical lessons for governments and intelligence communities today.
Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.