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
Robert Odell is a senior national intelligence officer at the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, assigned to the Belfer Center’s Intelligence Project as a Recanati-Kaplan Intelligence Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year. His recent work includes protecting US critical infrastructure from foreign intelligence threats.. Before joining the Intelligence Community, he lived and worked in the Middle East, East Asia, Oceania, and Europe.
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