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
Zachary Keck is a Research Assistant at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, where he studies nuclear weapons, U.S.-China relations, and U.S. defense policy. Before coming to the Belfer Center, he was managing editor of The National Interest. Previously, he was the managing editor of The Diplomat, where he authored the Pacific Realist blog. Zachary has also written for CNN, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and World Politics Review. Zachary holds an MA in Political Science from George Mason University and a BA in Political Science from SUNY New Paltz.
Last Updated: Jan 16, 2020, 3:33pm