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
Eugene B. Kogan, Ph.D., is the Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School’s East Asian Legal Studies Program. He recently concluded a five-year term as the inaugural Research and Executive Director of Harvard University’s American Secretaries of State Project, which aimed to crystallize diplomatic leadership lessons from 50 years of diplomacy by U.S. Secretaries of State, from William Rogers (1968) to Rex Tillerson (2018).
An expert in coercive negotiations and power dynamics, Dr. Kogan previously served as a Stanton Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He now teaches Using Power Effectively: A Toolkit for Leaders, a Professional Development Program at Harvard University’s Division of Continuing Education.
His Brandeis University Ph.D. thesis on nuclear negotiations won the Howard Raiffa Award for the best doctoral paper on negotiation from Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation. Dr. Kogan regularly trains business, public policy and military leaders at Harvard’s Professional Development Programs, Harvard Kennedy School’s Executive Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Professional Education, Brandeis, Sciences Po, Vienna’s Executive Academy, and Salzburg Business School.
Last Updated: Feb 19, 2020, 9:04am