buryatarcher said in #5567 10h ago:
By John Severini.
Robotic warfare is shifting the source of state power away from citizens to firms. The Ukraine War created an explosion of automated warfighting, from kamikaze drones to remotely piloted mini-tanks. As machines fight the wars of the future, the longstanding terms of the social contract will be rewritten.
In December 2024, Ukrainian forces carried out the world's first successful combined air-ground assault using only remotely piloted drones. As manpower shortages intensify, Ukraine's military has automated its core capacities.
Even in military superpowers like the United States, defensive planners have argued that increased use of unmanned systems like Ukraine's drone fleets could allow America to project more power at a lower cost and with lower risk to American lives.
The pivot to unmanned combat systems is just one part of a broader Western outsourcing of military capabilities to the corporate sector. The intelligence company Palantir is already deeply integrated into both American and Ukrainian military command and control.
As governments take advantage of private-sector tech, they unexpectedly find themselves at the mercy of these same corporations. SpaceX was able to dictate prices to the Pentagon during the Iran War; Anthropic overruled DoW policy to prevent Claude's use in autonomous weaponry.
Even the state's ability to nationalize private companies is eroded in 21st-century warfare: when cutting-edge technology requires constant innovation, competitive marketplaces, and top personnel, then government nationalizations risk destroying the companies they acquire.
Sovereignty ultimately rests on the government's power to coerce its populace, and is checked by the people's ability to disobey government orders. When military power is fully mechanized, the primary check on sovereignty is no longer the people but rather corporations.
Mass democracies like America were founded on the strength of mass armies of individual soldiers. In the age of autonomous, industrial, unmanned warfare, this very basis of popular sovereignty will be challenged. Politics must evolve for this era.
While transhumanists here are likely to applaud this development, I think it is important to point out that it directly undercuts the populist approach to politics in all countries. There is perhaps a limited window of democratic power as a tool against bureaucracy, and it might be far shorter than usually believed.
Read more here:
https://letter.palladiummag.com/p/war-by-other-means
Robotic warfare is shifting the source of state power away from citizens to firms. The Ukraine War created an explosion of automated warfighting, from kamikaze drones to remotely piloted mini-tanks. As machines fight the wars of the future, the longstanding terms of the social contract will be rewritten.
In December 2024, Ukrainian forces carried out the world's first successful combined air-ground assault using only remotely piloted drones. As manpower shortages intensify, Ukraine's military has automated its core capacities.
Even in military superpowers like the United States, defensive planners have argued that increased use of unmanned systems like Ukraine's drone fleets could allow America to project more power at a lower cost and with lower risk to American lives.
The pivot to unmanned combat systems is just one part of a broader Western outsourcing of military capabilities to the corporate sector. The intelligence company Palantir is already deeply integrated into both American and Ukrainian military command and control.
As governments take advantage of private-sector tech, they unexpectedly find themselves at the mercy of these same corporations. SpaceX was able to dictate prices to the Pentagon during the Iran War; Anthropic overruled DoW policy to prevent Claude's use in autonomous weaponry.
Even the state's ability to nationalize private companies is eroded in 21st-century warfare: when cutting-edge technology requires constant innovation, competitive marketplaces, and top personnel, then government nationalizations risk destroying the companies they acquire.
Sovereignty ultimately rests on the government's power to coerce its populace, and is checked by the people's ability to disobey government orders. When military power is fully mechanized, the primary check on sovereignty is no longer the people but rather corporations.
Mass democracies like America were founded on the strength of mass armies of individual soldiers. In the age of autonomous, industrial, unmanned warfare, this very basis of popular sovereignty will be challenged. Politics must evolve for this era.
While transhumanists here are likely to applaud this development, I think it is important to point out that it directly undercuts the populist approach to politics in all countries. There is perhaps a limited window of democratic power as a tool against bureaucracy, and it might be far shorter than usually believed.
Read more here:
https://letter.palladiummag.com/p/war-by-other-means
By John Severini....