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
Gabrielle Tarini graduated with a Master in Public Policy degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in May 2019. At the Kennedy School, she was a teaching assistant for former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, whom she helped to develop and manage a new graduate-level course on leadership in national security. She also worked as a research assistant at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, where she contributed to a report on the future of the NATO alliance. Last summer, she was a Harold W. Rosenthal Fellow in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, where she supported the Department’s efforts to train, equip, and build the capacity of foreign defense forces. Prior to the Kennedy School, she was a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. She graduated from Boston College with a BA in International Studies.