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
Kate Bjelde is the Project Assistant at the Belfer Center's Cyber Security Project, where she conducts research on cybersecurity vulnerabilities in technologies like unmanned aerial vehicles and satellites.
Prior to joining the Belfer Center, she was a research intern at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism and at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation in London. Kate earned her M.A. in Terrorism Security and Society from King's College London, where her thesis analyzed the moral, legal, and efficacious considerations underpinning U.S. drone policy.
Last Updated: Jan 16, 2020, 1:32pm