The war in Ukraine has become a live-fire laboratory for the future of conflict, revealing how artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the battlefield. Military planners now speak openly of “intelligent kill webs”—AI-driven systems that fuse sensors, data streams, and weapons into a single automated loop. Targets are detected, prioritized, and struck at speeds no human commander can match. What once required layers of human judgment is increasingly compressed into algorithmic decision-making measured in milliseconds.

Western and allied militaries are already testing this reality. Exercises involving AI-powered command-and-control systems—developed with firms like Palantir, Microsoft, and Anduril—have shown machines outperforming human officers in speed and, in some cases, accuracy. Analysts warn that as these systems mature, human oversight will continue to erode. The battlefield is shifting from human-led warfare to algorithmic execution, where machines not only assist decisions but increasingly make them.

SOURCE: The Times