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
Poorva Kaushik is a Belfer Young Leader and a first-year MPP candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is a Chemical and Nuclear Engineer and an alumnus of the KINS-KAIST International Nuclear and Radiation Safety Master's Degree Program from South Korea.
Before joining HKS, she had a nuclear career spanning over ten years in India, Europe, and the Middle East. She began her career as a Scientist with the Indian Government regulatory body, where she was the youngest lead reviewer independently responsible for the regulation of four Nuclear Power Plants.
To support the civil nuclear program in the middle east, she moved to UAE, where she developed and implemented licensing strategies and managed the stakeholder interface with the UAE nuclear regulators, internal experts, and South Korean suppliers. Her research interests include formulating policies that empower clean energy sources, nuclear strategy, and sustainable development.