Computers and Our National Defense Term Paper by Top Papers

The paper discusses how America is a "wired" nation; over the past few decades, computers have come to run the country's financial institutions, America's universities, its tax collection services, its law enforcement apparatus, and its military defense system. The paper points out that because of all this, any compromising of the passwords or firewalls built around those electronic networks can create enormous problems. The paper describes how if sensitive government information - or information on American citizens - falls into the wrong hands, such as the clutches of terrorists, the end result could be a shocking loss of innocent life. In a similar vein, the paper considers how if the defense networks safeguarding the United States of America were to be suddenly rendered inoperable, then rogue states harboring nuclear weapons would be able to direct those weapons at US targets without an appropriate defense response being in the offing. As an additional point, the paper notes that the nuclear warheads in this nation's imposing arsenal are, for all intents and purposes, computer-controlled; if terrorist hackers were to compromise domestic electronic defense systems, it is entirely likely that nuclear payloads could be unleashed on American cities. With all this in mind, the paper discusses how the electronic defense system in the world's most powerful state is protected, how vulnerable it may be, what the consequences of a security breach could be, and what additional steps we should take to protect ourselves. In the end, the paper shows how being the world's hyper-power is a bulwark in many ways against attack, but our elevated position does not leave us invulnerable.