The best way to automatically and proactively enforce the security control that new AWS S3 buckets must be private and encrypted at rest is with a Sentinel policy, which runs before every apply. Sentinel is a policy as code framework that allows you to define and enforce logic-based policies for your infrastructure. Terraform Cloud supports Sentinel policies for all paid tiers, and can run them before any terraform plan or terraform apply operation. You can write aSentinel policy that checks the configuration of the S3 buckets and ensures that they have the proper settings for privacy and encryption, and then assign the policy to your Terraform Cloud organization or workspace. This way, Terraform Cloud will prevent any changes that violate the policy from being applied. References = [Sentinel Policy Framework], [Manage Policies in Terraform Cloud], [Write and Test Sentinel Policies for Terraform]

terraform validateonlychecks the configuration's syntax and internal consistency-itdoes notinteract with provider APIs or check if the infrastructure settings are correct.
It ensures that the Terraform code is syntactically correct and follows proper HCL structure.
However, it doesnotverify if resources are valid according to the provider API or if the credentials are correct.
To verify actual infrastructure settings, use terraform plan, which interacts with the provider APIs.
Official Terraform Documentation Reference:
terraform validate - HashiCorp Documentation

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) provides several benefits, including the ability to version control infrastructure, reuse code, and automate infrastructure management. However, IaC is typically associated with declarative configuration files and does not inherently provide a graphical user interface (GUI). A GUI is a feature that may be provided by specific tools or platforms built on top of IaC principles but is not a direct benefit of IaC itself1.
References = The benefits of IaC can be verified from the official HashiCorp documentation on "What is Infrastructure as Code with Terraform?" provided by HashiCorp Developer1.

This command will initialize the new backend and prompt you to migrate the existing state file to the new location3. The other commands are not relevant for this task.

This is where the Terraform local backend stores its state, by default, unless you specify a different file name or location in your configuration. The local backend is the simplest backend type that stores the state file on your local disk.