If you give someone a weapon that no one knows how to use, no one can be sure what will happen. A raging stream of AI military news everything from logistics to intelligence to basic tactics is being reshaped every day. It’s turning strategy into a multidimensional universe at your leisure.
Certainties have become empty holes in the strategy. AI can be trained in operational ways that make old-style strategies redundant. These changes create new vulnerabilities that require innovative countermeasures. Technologies may have to be designed from scratch.
The scale and scope of strategic objectives are also now much broader, making defense much more difficult. A single coordinated AI strike can and will target infrastructure, communications, economic networks and put an entire country out of business within hours.
Mass production of weapons and AI agents adds further dimensions. These systems are coming online quickly, and operationally, they work. Ukraine is using various AI-enabled systems very effectively. Even at this early stage, a search for “Ukraine War AI” generates large amounts of related information.
“Asymmetrical War” is one thing, but military AI is a new kind of asymmetry. In asymmetric warfare, the capabilities of the forces differ significantly. With military AI, these capabilities can change overnight.
Military AI in sandbox mode
There are few things less popular in the world military than to say that war is becoming just a video game. From AI’s point of view, however, it cannot be anything else.
Players are meanwhile discovering the scary fact of how effective enhanced AI can be in gaming scenarios. In one notable case, The AI not only competently placed itself in strict best practice defensive positions, but was also able to counter attack. This result is textbook good tactic. The after action report in that game was absolutely terrible. Even at my level, this long established game suddenly became a very complicated affair and the very experienced human player was lost.
The sandbox analogy for military AI is probably very apt. This makes it even more dangerous. You can test scenarios. You can model operations. You can add elements to your fighting force and your tactics. You can force asymmetry on your opponent.
This generation of military AI is a mix of co-existing conventional systems and autonomous units. It’s barely the beginning of the beginning. AI is driving a top-down redesign of conventional systems as new platforms create new capabilities. The number of new difficulty levels is exploding.
Military AI at the geopolitical level
If noise-level AI is getting much tougher, at the geopolitical level, it’s more like 5-dimensional chess. The China-US dichotomy is one such case. Even AI governance rules are under some kind of high-level control that those rules can barely be met.
With this situation comes a number of operational realities. China’s current apparent military AI profile appears to be mirroring that of the US, but only up to a point. In a recent unveiling of military robotics technology, the popular robot dogs, drones and UAVs were very visible. Also visible were the “robot soldiers,” the much-anticipated and barely described antithesis of human warfare.
At the moment they look more like updated Terra Cotta Warriors, but they could be a factor in real operations. This is also a form of saber stroke, and it is making a deep impression geopolitically. You can almost hear the budget calculations trying to adjust to unknown threat levels.
The first casualty of the AI war is the old theory of the military industrial complex
This level of military AI is really just camera feed for now, but it is preparing the geopolitical market for massive changes. It is also reshaping the industrial base, down to the component level. Former military industrial complexes are becoming fully automated industrial complexes.
The problem for the military industrial complex is that the old industrial certainties are gone and they are not coming back. AI could be a game changer, but they’ll have to guess what games they’re playing.
This means:
Forget the old scripts of super expensive technology. The Ukraine war has shown how fatal expensive targets are. This is no longer “measure against countermeasure”. It’s about survival.
Seventh generation air capacity will be essential and soon. Sixth generation fighters are already under stress from AI penetration capabilities. UAVs may be the only option, and combat effectiveness is the only criterion.
Land warfare will never be the same. Imagine AI detonating minefields, munitions making areas uninhabitable, AI-guided bullets and more. Old technology is highly unlikely to be able to handle situations it was never designed for. Ammunition types are likely to be the first to be scrapped as military technology evolves.
Naval warfare must evolve, fast. Huge targets and ridiculously long production periods are death traps for modern navies. There are simply too many problems with the old methods.
Military intelligence now encompasses everything and everywhere. Remember that drones were once toys. Now, they are essential military equipment. Everything is their target. Cyber espionage agents and AI are redefining and redirecting military intelligence on an exponential scale across entire sectors. Any form of technology that can be adapted for military use is now a matter of intelligence.
Modern military logistics cannot use cumbersome supply chains. Ukraine has demonstrated that field capacity is critical to maintaining and sustaining warfighting capabilities. Russia has shown that these supply formats are outdated and completely unworkable. The smooth pace of military supply cannot work. Modern warfare needs support to deliver as quickly as possible.
The perspective of those on the receiving end has also changed
Nothing is protected by AI. Controlling the military AI is a real guessing game. Autonomous AI can make decisions that are not under the effective control of military organizations. There may or may not be an off switch for these types of AI.
AI may also have nothing to do with the rules of war. Does AI take them prisoner? Maybe not. Definitely not, unless you know how. Will AI respect civilian targets? Maybe, but how and can anyone be sure it will?
What about collateral damage? It was a big deal and now it’s inevitable. The higher mortality shall apply without distinction, notwithstanding any attempt to the contrary. How do you tell an AI not to bomb a specific target when on search and destroy missions?
Typically in modern wars, civilian casualties are far higher than military ones. The realities of AI warfare are far more dangerous. Let’s stop being complacent about dollars and focus on survival.
