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
Christos A. Makridis serves on the White House Council of Economic Advisers and is a Digital Fellow at MIT Sloan's Initiative on the Digital Economy, as well as a non-resident fellow at the Belfer Center's Cybersecurity Project. He earned his doctorates in management science & engineering and economics at Stanford University and focuses in areas of labor, public, and macro economics with a passion for understanding how technology and social change affects individuals and firms.
Last Updated: Aug 25, 2020, 2:49pm