Cyberattacks

The recent attacks of cyber espionage by hackers of some of our vital government computers show our lack of security and our vulnerability in future warfare. While our adversaries are building modern artificial intelligence, quantum computing, space and biological games; and autonomous weapons, our huge defense budget is mostly geared to provide our military complex with the same old-fashioned weapon systems of by-gone wars.

The main reason we continue to build these weapons is because closing factories or bases endangers military jobs in congressional districts. A good reason for term limits! Our huge 2019 defense budget of $732 billion was more than the combined defense budgets of China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and Brazil.

China operates two aircraft carriers; Russia operates one. The United States has 11. Don’t you have to wonder what those other nations are spending their money on? Americans love to talk about having a “strong military.” I believe a guy with his finger on a mouse will do more damage in the next real war than a guy with his finger on a machine gun trigger. There are very few items now in our defense budget that are actually useful to “defend” our country. Mostly our weapons are designed for going “over there,” offensive weapons. We’d better be thinking about our defense. We have about 5,000 miles of ocean on both sides of us. Our enemies can only attack us through cyberspace, not with the physical weaponry of past warfare.

John J. Martin, Norfolk