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
Robby Mook is a Belfer Center Senior Fellow.
Mook is co-founder and former senior fellow with Defending Digital Democracy (D3P), a Belfer Center project launched in 2017 to to identify and recommend strategies, tools, and technology to protect democratic processes and systems from cyber and information attacks - particularly around the 2020 presidential election.
Earlier in his career, Mook was a CNN political commentator and a nationally recognized campaign manager and strategist who ran the 2015-16 presidential campaign for Hillary Clinton.
Mook’s successes include the 2013 election of Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe – the first time in 40 years that Virginians elected a governor from the same party as the sitting U.S President – and the 2008 election of Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire’s first woman Senator. He also was state director for Clinton’s 2008 presidential primary campaign in three states where she defeated Barack Obama in the primaries. In 2012, he served as Executive Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Last Updated: Aug 24, 2021, 12:57pm