Pavel Sharikov
Introduction Relations between the United States and Russia have deteriorated to their lowest level since the worst times of the Cold War. The current Russia-Western standoff, which intensified in 2014 over the events in Ukraine, has become a major feature of the new international system. The same level of courage and creativity that helped stabilize and end the U.S.-Soviet Cold War is needed today.
The current situation differs enough from the earlier Cold War to be called the “Cold War 2.0.” It does not involve the same ideological premises; the parties are not peer competitors; and they are not locked in a zero-sum competition for world dominance. Cold War 2.0 also has a new feature: the widespread use of cyber and information technologies (IT) for strategic advantage through espionage, disruptive cyber-attacks, and interference in domestic politics.
Just as Cold War security experts worried that the superpowers’ nuclear competition could lead to a disastrous war that neither desired, some are now starting to recognize that unconstrained cyber competition could have a similar result. For example, some current security experts have become increasingly concerned that as mistrust grows, exploitative cyber operations intended to collect information about a potential adversary’s military capabilities for defensive reasons could be misperceived as a prelude to disruptive cyber-attack, eliciting a pre-emptive reaction that escalates out of control. Russian offensive cyber capabilities are perceived as serious security risks and have not yet became subject to international regulation. 1
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