Herbert Lin is the Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security at the Hoover Institution.

In this Q&A, Lin discusses his recently released book Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons. He explains that until this publication, the literature about cyber technology’s impact on the nuclear enterprise has been relatively sparse.

Lin asserts that although policy makers have made incredible achievements in the reduction of nuclear weapons around the world, these inventions nevertheless still represent an existential threat to humanity today. This threat is further compounded by the reality that computers are intimately involved in every step of the operation of weapons systems. As computing technology has advanced, nuclear weapons systems have become more complex and thus more vulnerable to cyberattacks from America’s adversaries, who can disrupt the decision-making process on the use of nuclear weapons. Ultimately, Lin ponders how to best manage the trade-off between technologically advanced systems with numerous capabilities and simplified systems that can provide a higher level of security in the nuclear enterprise.

Read the rest at The Hoover Institution