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
Karim Haggag is a visiting fellow with the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is currently a professor of practice at the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo. He is a career Egyptian diplomat with over 25 years of service in Egypt’s diplomatic corps. Throughout his career, he has served in numerous capacities focusing on US foreign policy towards the Middle East, Middle East regional security, arms control and non-proliferation, and Arab-Israeli diplomacy. His current research interests focus on the changing geopolitics of energy in the eastern Mediterranean, and the linkages between Middle East and Mediterranean security. He is a graduate of The American University in Cairo, and holds an MA in War Studies from King’s College in London.
Last Updated: Aug 25, 2021, 2:09pm