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
Lama Mourad was a pre-doctoral research fellow at the Belfer Center's Middle East Initiative. She is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto (expected 2018). Her doctoral dissertation is focused on the role of municipalities in governing the Syrian refugee influx in Lebanon. She has received numerous grants and awards for her work, including the SSHRC-CGS Doctoral Fellowship, the International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) Doctoral Award, and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. She has published in a number of academic and public outlets, including the Journal of Refugee Studies, Middle East Law and Governance, Forced Migration Studies, as well as the Toronto Star, and Le Devoir.
Last Updated: Jan 14, 2020, 1:21pm