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.”
Biography
Averell Schmidt is a predoctoral research fellow at the Belfer Center's International Security Program. He is a Ph.D. candidate in public policy at Harvard University. His current research focuses on the causes and consequences of states' decisions to violate, contest, or withdraw from treaties. Before beginning his doctoral studies, he was a fellow at Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, served with the Peace Corps in Morocco, fought forest fires in the Sawtooth National Forest, and worked for public policy research organizations in Sri Lanka, Israel, Georgia, and Egypt. He holds an M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School and a B.A. from Lewis & Clark College.
Last Updated: Sep 17, 2020, 9:44amAwards
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Email: averell_schmidt@hks.harvard.edu
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