Video: Opinion | Our Military Is Built for the Wrong Century

War has changed as drones, robots, and autonomous weapons remake battlefields. The key issue is not only what rules forbid, but what rules do not explicitly forbid. Constraints on Pentagon use of drones and autonomous weapons are framed around whether a human must decide actions like killing or shooting. The absence of explicit bans on automating the kill chain implies that automation may be permitted. The shift is tied to long-standing assumptions about entering wars with technological superiority and maintaining military primacy. Defense technology efforts aim to build systems that function as hubs for autonomous warfare.

"Ukraine and Iran have shown us that war as we've known it is over. What's your understanding of the constraints on what the Pentagon allows a drone or an autonomous weapon to do without a human deciding, Kill this person, shoot this person? The more important thing is what it doesn't say. It doesn't say you're not allowed to automate the kill chain. So you're allowed to do that? You are not not allowed to do that. Right."

"So it seems to me like the future of high-tech warfare has arrived, that we are living through a revolution in warfighting unlike any at least in my own lifetime in which drones and robots and autonomous weapons are remaking battlefields. And your professional work puts you at the center of this shift. You are the president and chief strategy officer of Anduril, which is a defense technology company that's trying to be the hub or a hub, at least for autonomous warfare."

"So I want to start by asking you to just describe where we are now, generally to someone, let's say, who fell asleep at the end of the Iraq War and just woke up. In order to talk about the future, we also have to talk about that past and present. So if you look at I'd say, the assumptions that we have been operating under for the past 30, 40 years, I think that's what's driven the kind of military that we have."

"So we have assumed that if America is ever going to have to fight a war, we are going to enter the battlefield with technological superiority against any rival; that we have military primacy in the world and dominance over any"

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