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
Owen Coté is Associate Director of the MIT Security Studies Program and Editor of the journal International Security. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT in 1996. His dissertation, which he is revising for publication, analyzed the sources of innovative military doctrine. In addition, he has written on post–Cold War naval and nuclear weapons issues in the United States and the Soviet Union.
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