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
Diana Buttu is a former fellow with the Middle East Initiative at the Belfer Center and an Eleanor Roosevelt visiting fellow at the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School.
Diana Buttu is a Palestinian-Canadian attorney and frequent commentator on Middle East politics. She previously served as a legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team in its negotiations with Israel and later as an advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Last Updated: Jan 6, 2017, 12:57pm