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
Wendy R. Sherman is a former professor of the practice of public leadership and director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. In addition, she is a former Senior Fellow at the School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Ambassador Sherman is Senior Counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. She is currently an MSNBC global affairs contributor and on the USA TODAY Board of Contributors. Ambassador Sherman is the author of Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power and Persistence, published by PublicAffairs, September 2018. In April 2021, Sherman was approved as United States Deputy Secretary of State.
She serves on the boards of the International Crisis Group and the Atlantic Council, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Strategy Group, and the Massachusetts Women’s Forum. Ambassador Sherman led the U.S. negotiating team that reached agreement on a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the P5+1, the European Union, and Iran for which, among other diplomatic accomplishments, she was awarded the National Security Medal by President Barack Obama. Prior to her service at the Department of State, she was Vice Chair and founding partner of the Albright Stonebridge Group, Counselor of the Department of State under Secretary Madeleine Albright, and Special Advisor to President Clinton and Policy Coordinator on North Korea, and Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs under Secretary Warren Christopher.
Ambassador Sherman, with a Masters in Social Work, began her career as Director of Child Welfare for the State of Maryland. Later, she managed Senator Barbara Mikulski’s successful campaign for the U.S. Senate, served as director of EMILY’s List, and ran Campaign ’88 at the Democratic National Committee for the Dukakis presidential campaign. She served on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, was Chair of the Board of Directors of Oxfam America, and served on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Policy Board and Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation and Terrorism.
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