Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
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strategy. Since Pearl Harbour the United States had developed a
particular sensitivity to the threat of unprovoked attacks for which
they might not be prepared. Such a threat was, of course, far more
potent in the light of the devastating nature of the new weaponry,
both in terms of the distance it could cover and its destructive
capabilities. It also precluded any kind of direct confrontation with
the
, which could all too easily lead to global destruction.
The United States also developed a strategy of containment, which
meant both containing the 'free world' from the communist threat,
and containing the communist powers within their own borders.
This strategy, which Paul Edwards describes as a 'closed world
discourse',
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meant placing itself on a permanent war footing, and
entailed the maintenance of a large standing army, massive invest-
ment in weaponry and the development of weapons research. This
in turn had a positive knock-on effect on the economy as the
'military-industrial' complex provided large numbers of civilian
jobs, and a great deal of investment.
It was the resulting 'Cold War' and its exigencies that provided
much of the support for research into computing and information
technologies, as well as ideas such as Cybernetics and other systems
theories. Computers were crucial in offering a solution to one of
the great paradoxes of the Cold War. In the context of nuclear
weapons, actual confrontation was not possible. But its impossibility
was underpinned by both sides being willing to think it possible,
and prepare for it. The doctrine of 'mutually assured destruction' or
MAD as it was appropriately named, proclaimed that, so long as
both sides knew the other was ready and able to respond in kind,
then it would be suicidal to make any kind of pre-emptive attack.
But for this strategy to be effective, each side had to be convinced,
and be able to convince the other that they were not just willing, but
able to retaliate. The problem was that there was no way to properly
test this ability, other than by undertaking the very act that the whole
arrangement was supposed to prevent. The computer offered a way
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