Technology and national security

¶ … Technology of National Security

The threat of a nuclear attack and other forms of mass destruction raise legitimate and serious concerns in today's world of proliferation and the war on terror. North Korea's recent announcement of its plans to further test its long-range ballistic missile, the Taepodong-2, only increases these fears, as the missile is expected to eventually -- or presently -- have the capacity to strike the west coast of the United States. But though the threats of these attacks might seem to be on an increase in the current period due to rising instability and technological advancements, the advancements and developments of defensive technology have at least kept pace with, if not surpassed, the gains made in offensive weapons of mass destruction.

These defensive advancements come into play in two basic (and highly oversimplified) ways -- detection and prevention. There is no way to overestimate the importance of early detection and warning of such attacks, and the United States and other nations have taken large steps to increase their information-gathering capabilities.

While some of the technologies employed in today's "war on terror" are more recent developments, many have been around for decades, though these have gone through many improvements years. Chief among U.S. intelligence gathering in foreign, hostile countries (and arguably chief among all detection strategies) is the use of reconnaissance or "spy" satellites, capable of visual and infrared imaging of almost any spot on Earth. Though man-made satellites have been orbiting the Earth since Sputnik in 1957 -- with reconnaissance satellites coming just years later -- they have gone through many technological improvements. Reliable data concerning the current state of military intelligence satellites is, of course, not available to the public, but a look at past information easily demonstrates that things have progressed very far indeed over the past fifty years of reconnaissance technology.

Until 1976 and the successful launch and orbit of the KH-11, satellite images were stored on film canisters, which would then be ejected by the satellite and retrieved for developing and analysis. The KH-11 was the first (known) satellite to transmit images digitally via encrypted radio transmissions, allowing for real-time viewing and interpretation. Transmission technologies have only improved since this time, and the number of satellites currently orbiting is also thought to be far greater, providing more accurate and available knowledge. The cameras aboard these satellites have improved vastly, too; the KH-11 could provide clarity only down to about six inches. Satellite images available on Google Earth have a higher resolution than this; government satellites are presumably even better equipped.

Technology also comes into play in the prevention of an attack. This can include technologies aiding ground soldiers or aircraft crews in attacking suspected production, launch, or training sites, but the more exciting aspect of technological prevention is found in the form of the oft-ridiculed "Star Wars" program and its successors. Though never fully launched as a program itself, the Strategic Defense Initiative, as it was officially known, gave rise to many of today's anti-ballistic missile programs. Again, the details of the current state of such systems is classified, but some details (certainly not the latest) can be found. Though never tested in real-world situations, the United States employs "exoatmospheric kill vehicles" which are themselves launched by missiles to intercept incoming ballistic attacks, colliding with incoming warheads (hopefully) out of harm's way. Though this seems basic, such accuracy would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

Biological Science and National Security

As technology continues to advance, new breakthroughs in medicine and the biological sciences are pose both great benefits and dangers to society as a whole. Especially life-altering, in possibly good and bad ways, are the advances made and being made in genetic engineering, reproductive technologies, cloning, organ transplanting, and human experimentation. These are all causes of concern on a moral, legal, and even a national security level. While these emerging and increasingly established technologies can benefit society, they also have the potential to disrupt the social order and fuel domestic terrorism. This might seem like a bit of a stretch at first, but an examination of historical trends regarding eugenics -- as well as the nation's vulnerabilities to domestic terrorism -- make the threat very clear.

The issue of genetic manipulation started with the description of the DNA molecule by Francis Crick and James Watson in 1953, but it wasn't for several decades that much progress was made. When it happened, it came as an explosion: the Human Genome Project, started in 1990 and completed in 2003 -- at least insofar as the data-gathering phase of the project was concerned -- successfully identified all of the genes in the human DNA, as well as mapped the sequence of all three billion base pairs that made up these genes. Many other research endeavors were running concurrent to the Human Genome Project, some along very similar lines, while others were more concerned with the manipulation of specific genes. All genetic projects, however, grew in leaps and bounds thanks to the information concentrated in the Human Genome Project.

To understand what this has to do with domestic terrorism, one need only look at the history of eugenics. The term is most famously -- or infamously -- associated with the Nazis as their rationale for exterminating six million Jews and millions of other "undesirables" such as the handicapped, blacks, and homosexuals. Eugenics also has a rich history in the United States, however; though the United States never had a program designed to make a "master race," it had and has its share of eugenics adherents, who believed that selective reproduction and eventually genetic manipulation could and should be used to improve humanity's hereditary capabilities.

Domestic terrorists could possibly use emerging genetic technologies as a form of biological warfare, introducing gene-altering substances to water supplies or in crowded areas. Horrible mutations would most likely not be noticed, but even the most subtle change in genetic structure could very easily lead to death. The time lapse between ingestion of the substance and its effect would also most likely be large, increasing panic with the irregularity and seeming suddenness of infection/mutation. Though genetic mutations are not communicable and therefore would not spread like traditional forms of biological warfare, populations of several hundreds to thousands could theoretically be affected in a single attack, and the fear and disorder this would create is the primary goal of the domestic terrorist.

The ethical issues of genetics, then, extend much further than simply what is right and wrong for humans to manipulate. The issue of national security presents far more direct and less esoteric ethical considerations. For instance, developing any gene-altering substance that does not result in an entirely beneficial effect could be called into question, lest it should fall into the wrong hands. Given the limits this would place on research, however, and the refusal of world governments to ever turn down a technology that might allow them to kill more effectively, such developments will likely continue.

Behavioral Science and National Security

During the Cold War, the United States' and other governments' intelligence agencies were primarily concerned with a type of enemy that could be measured by the location of military bases, fighter jets, and troop movements. Although the threat from enemy states has not vanished, we are now faced with the arguably more formidable threat of transnational terrorism, which provides an enemy far different from what the world grew used to in the twentieth century. These enemies are not contained within borders, are often indistinguishable from the civilian populace, and are made of loose-knit, idiosyncratic organizations. In order to successfully address this threat, Cold War mentalities and strategies must be abandoned, along with the twentieth century's total reliance on traditional artillery. Because identifying and physically eliminating or imprisoning terrorists is largely impossible and ultimately self-defeating, terrorism is most effectively combated by a combination of defensive strategies and an offensive drive to disable or alter the terrorists' hatred and will to fight. The key to accomplishing all this is in the hands of behavioral science.

The first and perhaps most important way in which behavioral science can help in the war on terror is by identifying terrorists and populations more likely to harbor and perhaps even produce terrorists. These goals are highly related, but they also include separate elements. For the first goal, identifying terrorists, intense psychological analysis is necessary of both known terrorists and the average populous in countries where terrorists are known to blend in. In this way, differences in the personalities and temperaments of terrorists and average citizens might be used by field agents to preliminarily identify suspected terrorists. This in turn would enable resources to be more narrowly focused and therefore more effective. One of the major problems in the war on terror is knowing exactly who the enemy is before an attack is made, and an increased emphasis on the behavioral sciences could at least partially alleviate this problem, saving lives and preventing the terrorists main goal -- fear.