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
During her 20-year CIA career, Ms. Wood served in the Director’s area and three Agency directorates—analysis, operations, and digital innovation—leading a wide variety of the Agency’s missions. She delivered the President's Daily Brief to senior Administration officials in the George W. Bush Administration, stood up the Sherman Kent School's Senior Analyst Program, and led the analytic team that prepared the CIA Director for briefings to Congress and National Security Council meetings.
Ms. Wood was selected for the Agency's Senior Intelligence Service and finished her career at CIA as the Deputy Director of the Innovation & Technology Group at the CIA's Open Source Center where she successfully led programs and technical experts that extracted meaning from big data and created tools, methodologies, and infrastructure for the future.
Since 2015, her consulting firm has assisted start-up companies and mature defense industry and financial services to develop technological solutions to support the US Government mission, while her Harvard Kennedy School fellowship has allowed her to focus on the national security implications of climate change.
Ms. Wood graduated from Occidental College with an A.B. in Political Science. She is currently serving as a non-resident Fellow for the Intelligence Project at the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs with a focus on climate change and national security. She serves on the Advisory Board for the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC and Ox Intel, and Spycraft Entertainment.
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