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
Dina Bishara is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama. Her research focuses on state-labor relations, social and protest movements under authoritarian rule, and transitions from authoritarian rule. Prior to joining the Belfer Center, Dina was the Jarvis Doctorow Research Fellow in the Politics and International Relations of the Middle East at the University of Oxford and a Research Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the George Washington University. Dina was an associate at the Belfer Center’s Middle East Initiative and former postdoctoral research fellow (2015-2016).
Last Updated: Jan 14, 2020, 1:20pm