National Security and Technology

Robbie Dawson
Persuasive Writing





"Do you expect me to talk?" In Goldfinger, Sean Connery is tied to a table as a laser beam slowly approaches him, threatening to cut him in half. The goal of his captor is to intimidate him enough in order to extract national security information. When most people imagine national security, they think of the Cold War era espionage of the James Bond series or the epic battles that defined war in the twentieth century. This, however, is increasingly not the case. The information age has begun to alter the way our country protects itself. Conflict in the coming century will not be defined by how many tanks a state has, rather it will be defined by how advanced a nation’s technology and cyber-security is; the advancement of military technology will eventually obsolete any primitive adversary such as Al-Qaeda. At the same time, the vast gray area of Cyber-warfare will arouse conflict throughout the world. Not a conflict for territory or resources, but a conflict for information. Because after all, why bother to tie Mr. Bond to a table, when you can steal a foreign government's secrets from the comfort of your living room?
In July 2010, a non-government organization known as Wikileaks began to release a series of almost half a million U.S. Army field reports detailing military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. The documents were allegedly stolen on a thumb drive by Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst. Wikileaks is no black swan. Many foreign governments have conducted cyber-espionage on U.S. networks in order to gain access to secrets.
The most prominent government collecting intelligence on the U.S. is China. "This is just another way in which [China] gleans information about us and collects on us for technology purposes, so it's a very formidable concern," said James Clapper, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence. Through cyber-intelligence, China has been able to learn intimate secrets about our military and it’s technology, and as a result has been able to copy technology we already have. In 2005 China was able to steal the designs for the engine of an F-16 fighter, currently our most numerous attack aircraft. But secret-stealing through the Web isn’t just limited to China. In fact, many major powers, including our own, conduct military operations using information technology.
With the rise of computers, the Department of Defense and the intelligence community have been quick to adapt to the new threats and benefits of the cyber world. Intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency, which now focuses on gathering information via computers, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which focuses on the use of satellites, have come to be as important as traditional (human) intelligence sources. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency provided critical information that made the assassination of Osama Bin Laden possible.

The U.S. military is seeing a significant shift toward using technology instead of manpower to achieve objectives. The CIA and the U.S. Air Force have been flying missions all over the world using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. These UAVs have the capability to provide surveillance of enemies and even kill them with missiles. In the war on terror, the U.S. has used robots to disarm bombs and scout out rooms that could contain insurgents. A new “Smart Gun” has been developed that is designed to use computers to detonate a bomb over a target behind a wall, making cover irrelevant. Weapons such as these will eventually make “regular” warfare irrelevant.

Technology has always been the definitive aspect of warfare. Just as the rural Confederate forces stood no chance against the massive Industrialized might of the Union military during the American Civil War, Insurgents inevitably stand no chance against the technological might of modern America, and other growing technological superpowers. Insurgents on the ground can be tracked using UAVs and helicopters with thermal optics. Minature soda can sized robots can be thrown in through a window to explore a house. Cameras that can take high definition video can be made so small that they can be disguised as a button. Potential enemies movements are tracked via computers across the globe via computers. In short any adversary that lacks our level of technology stands no chance. This however paves way for an all out war between technological superpowers.

This type of war doesn’t even need to use weapons at all. In 2010, an Israeli Cyber-warfare team crippled an Iranian nuclear facility with a computer virus. The virus halted all progress at the uranium enrichment plant for an extended period of time. These sorts of attacks will become much more prevalent. One reason for this is because with the threat of more crude enemies eliminated, superpowers that choose to fight each other will need to find a way that doesn’t consist of mutally assured destruction. For example, if America was to go to war with China even if nuclear weapons were not in use, both countries would be so incredibly devastated that neither would truly win. A cyber-attack however is hard to trace and in today's political environment, as seen with the Israeli-Iran attack, would not spell war.

National security is shifting from army-on-army battles, and human intelligence, to something new entirely. A complex cyber-front, where every country is in it for themselves, has formed. As undeveloped adversaries fall into the dust, large technological superpowers will turn to each other. The Coldwar-era military standoffs and standstills between super powers will give way to fast paced and fluid cyber-conflicts that will define the next century. These nations will use the latest technology to gain whatever information they want and attack anyone without warning.