Pentagon Wants Skynet-Style Weapons

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Written by Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst

It’s been nearly 40 years since the release of the first “Terminator”, a relatively low-budget movie back then, albeit with a very tentative and virtually never explored idea – artificial intelligence controlling machines that want to eradicate humanity. The sequels gave us more information on how this grim future came to be and it revolves around the United States military contracting a private company to create an advanced AI that could give the Pentagon an edge over its strategic opponents. The advantage is achieved through the AI’s ability to accurately assess enormous amounts of battlefield data and engage the enemy in a timeframe that would be impossible for human commanders to accomplish.

This backfires after the AI makes the decision that precisely humans are the problem and that a complete eradication of our species is the “adequate final solution”. Now, we’ve all seen the movies and you’re probably wondering why would anyone need a recapitulation. Well, because the first part of the plot is happening in reality as we speak. Namely, the Pentagon is actually working on weaponizing advanced AI. According to Michael T. Klare of The Nation, while experts warn about the risk of human extinction, the Department of Defense (DoD) plows full speed ahead. However, we are “not to worry”, because the political elites in Washington DC promote “the responsible use of AI in warfare”.

“We cannot predict how AI technologies will evolve or what they might be capable of in a year or five years. Nevertheless, the United States is determined to put in place the necessary policies and to build the technical capacities to enable responsible development and use [of AI by the military], no matter the technological advancements,” Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, said at a UN presentation on November 13.

In other words, the Pentagon has no idea what might happen with the AI even next year, but it’s determined to use it in a war. “Responsibly”, of course. To further “reassure” the world on how this would go, it would be responsible (no pun intended) to actually examine who Ms. Jenkins is and what has she managed to accomplish so far. The State Department describes her as an “expert on arms control and nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)”. Among many positions she held in her career, Jenkins was a “Legal Adviser to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency where she provided advice to U.S. ambassadors and delegations negotiating arms control and nonproliferation treaties”.

The State Department website further claims that “she also provided legal advice to treaty implementation bodies including the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, and the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and that “she has worked with international institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the World Health Organization, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Office of Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization…” On the surface, most of it may seem like bureaucratic gibberish that isn’t exactly of interest to any of us.

However, if we were to take a closer look, most of the aforementioned treaties are defunct, both de facto and de jure. The US has unilaterally withdrawn from nearly all of these, although they were supposed to be “guarantees” for global security. The result has been disastrous, as the US has drastically expanded most of the capabilities that were previously limited by these treaties. And it all happened during Ms. Jenkins’s tenure. Now, the same person wants to implement similar “guarantees” for advanced AI. If that isn’t a wake-up call, it’s difficult to say what else could possibly be. This also demonstrates just how “committed” American political and military elites are to supposed “arms control and nonproliferation”.

Interestingly, back in May, State Secretary Antony Blinken named Jenkins as the senior official to lead the Department’s efforts on AUKUS implementation. As we all know now, AUKUS (short for Australia, the UK and the US) is a sort of “proto Asia-Pacific NATO” directly aimed against China. This perfectly ties in with the rest of Mr. Klare’s report in The Nation, where he explains that the Pentagon already announced its “Replicator” initiative back in August when Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks noted that “the US must prepare for a possible war with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), in the not-too-distant future, and that US forces cannot match the PLA’s weapons inventories on an item-by-item basis”.

“The US must be prepared to overcome China’s superiority in conventional measures of power — its military ‘mass’ — by deploying ‘multitude thousands’ of autonomous weapons. To stay ahead, we’re going to create a new state of the art — just as America has before — leveraging attritable [i.e., disposable], autonomous systems in all domains,” she told corporate executives at a National Defense Industrial Association meeting in Washington DC, adding: “We’ll counter the PLA’s mass with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, harder to beat.”

The report also mentions that the Pentagon continues with the program, as Hicks gave more details on September 6, when she even revealed new military nomenclature for the system, calling it ADA2 or all-domain attritable autonomous weapons (not to be confused with the similarly named A2/AD or anti-access/area denial weapons). Having advanced nomenclature clearly implies that such weapon systems are already deeply ingrained in the emerging US strategy. No matter how secretive or vague US officials are trying to be, the language they use is very indicative of their true intentions. It seems the belligerent thalassocracy is determined to give the world nothing but death and destruction, as evidenced by its history.

Namely, the US is the only country in the world to have used all three types of WMDs (nuclear, biological and chemical) in war. Obviously, that’s “not enough”, so Washington DC is determined to give the world a fourth type. Of course, using it to kill other humans is mandatory, because the US is the “indispensable” nation after all. It can only be expected that the targeted nations will respond in kind, just as was the case with thermonuclear weapons. The example of North Korea and its strategic arsenal illustrates this perfectly. Unfortunately, as long as American “experts on arms control and nonproliferation” deal with both of these two crucial aspects of international law and security, the world will have neither.