42nd Annual Michelson Memorial Lecture
"Is Cyberwar Overrated? Lessons From the War in Ukraine"
Dmitri Alperovitch
Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator
Mahan Hall

Many experts had mistakenly predicted that the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the first ever war between an advanced cyber power against a technologically sophisticated society, would be a showcase of the importance and capabilities of cyber weapons in kinetic conflicts. Where did the modern-day cyber Nostradamuses go wrong and does this mean that the forecasting of the upcoming changes in the nature of warfare due to the invention of the cyber domain was fundamentally mistaken? This lecture will attempt to answer these questions and the speaker will put forward his own predictions on the implications of cyber to the future of warfare.
About Dimitri Alperovitch
Dmitri Alperovitch is a thought leader in geopolitics and national security currently serving as the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, an innovative non-profit venture-capital modeled think tank committed to advancing American prosperity and global leadership in the 21st century and beyond.
In 2022, Alperovitch was appointed to both the prestigious Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and as a founding board member of the new Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). He has also served as a Special Advisor to the Department of Defense (DoD).
In 2021, Alperovitch launched the Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), a premier academic institution producing paradigm shifting, impactful research and instruction at the intersection of cybersecurity, technology, intelligence and international affairs.
Prior to founding Silverado, Alperovitch co-founded CrowdStrike, Inc., one of the world’s largest cybersecurity companies.
The Michelson Memorial Lecture Series is generously sponsoredby the USNA Class of 1969