Most Terraform backup discussions focus on copying the state file.
That misses the actual recovery chain.
Terraform recovery depends on multiple connected controls working together before corruption happens. Versioning preserves historical state objects. Encryption protects stored infrastructure metadata. Public access blocks reduce exposure risk. IAM permissions determine whether recovery remains possible during incidents. State locking reduces concurrent write corruption during active operations.
This lesson explains backup and recovery as a systems boundary problem instead of a storage feature checklist.