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.”
Eric Rosenbach, Co-Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, and former Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security, testified before the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on April 24, 2018, on "Mitigating America's Cybersecurity Risk."