Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming warfare, but whether it is changing it for the better remains unsettled. AI-enabled systems can improve surveillance, targeting, defensive response, and force protection. Yet technological improvement alone does not constitute a revolution. The more critical issue is whether AI-enabled robotics, which include semi-autonomous and fully autonomous machines, will change what Carl Von Clausewitz called the “grammar of war,” which includes the practical methods through which political violence is organized, controlled, and conducted. 

The conflict with Iran, known as Operation EPIC FURY, has made a broader view of war more compelling. The operation is characterized by drones, missiles, long-range strikes, electronic warfare, persistent surveillance, and layered air defenses, like the war in Ukraine. The absence of a significant ground campaign does not mean U.S. troops are out of harm’s way. These courageous service members reassure allies, support operations, deter escalation, and influence an adversary’s decisions. Even if they are not directly fighting on the ground, these brave men and women remain targets. 

This operation highlights the lack of distinction between combat troops involved in direct operations and support troops, which may signify the future of warfare. The U.S. has pivoted toward multi-domain operations with a focus on geopolitical actors and challenges, at times marginalizing insurgency and criminality as a secondary issue. In this new (or perhaps revamped) dynamic, a service member does not have to be maneuvering against an enemy force to be a target. Ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones can hit well beyond a conventional front line. The front line has not disappeared. Instead, it has expanded across the theater. 

Robotics may further alter this situation, but only if our military leaders and planners look beyond supplanting troops with machines. Unmanned aircraft, robotic logistics platforms, automated ships, underwater systems, and loitering munitions could reduce the number of personnel exposed to kinetic attacks. But these systems would still need operators, maintainers, analysts, communications specialists, and logisticians. If those people remain concentrated on vulnerable bases, robotics may simply shift risk rather than eliminate it. 

A genuine technical revolution would therefore require robotics to transform both offensive and defensive capabilities. Robotic systems would need to fill roles in the most dangerous missions in place of humans while also protecting the human force that remains as a shaping element in the region. The first recorded rescue operation involving downed pilots involved an unmanned surface vessel (USV) during Operation EPIC FURY. This rescue proved that robotics or drones could reduce the potential for loss of life. 

Advanced AI plays a role in the revolution especially in counter-missile and anti-drone capabilities. A prime example of AI successfully countering unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and missile attacks is Israel’s use of its Iron Dome. With future advancements, those networks could fuse multiple sensor feeds, distinguish real threats from decoys, predict trajectories, and deploy the most cost-effective defense. This is important because current attacks are meant to swamp defenders with volume, speed, and complexity. 

Clausewitz explains what can change the nature of conflict. War has its logic in political aims, the why, and its own grammar, the how. Geopolitical entities will engage in combat operations, but the question is, with what tools? The debate regarding active conflict will not dissipate, even if humans are not involved in the more active parts of combat. Emerging technologies can rewrite this framework to a degree but only if they compel militaries to completely overhaul established doctrine, logistics, and command structures to accommodate novel paradigms. 

Historical precedent cautions against calling a revolution at the first use of every new weapon system. In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, numerous analysts cited precision munitions and satellites as definitive evidence that combat had undergone a permanent transformation. The less glamorous realities of the Gulf War are very telling as well and commonly forgotten. These include strong supply chains, highly specific political boundaries, ineffectiveness and ineptitude of the opposing force, and overwhelming air superiority, which are frequently disregarded by that narrative. Hardware offers promise; institutional competence is still the filter through which that promise is translated into actual combat effectiveness.  

The same will be true of robotics. Militaries will not achieve a revolution merely by purchasing or producing thousands of drones or unmanned vehicles in place of humans. Those systems must be integrated in a coherent way of fighting through doctrinal and organizational changes. They must share information, divide tasks, adapt to losses, function in disrupted communications environments, and operate under clear rules of authority and accountability. 

Integrating robotic systems into combat operations and the operational environment may fundamentally alter the domestic politics surrounding armed conflict. While sparing troops is an undeniable humanitarian gain, removing the visceral human cost could significantly lower the political barrier for states to initiate or drag out military campaigns. The political price of fighting, therefore, does not vanish but merely takes a new form. Public debate and legislative scrutiny will most likely shift from the casualty metrics to severe hardware attrition, market dynamics, and debt or deficit levels. Domestic debates will center around the depletion of advanced interceptors, sudden semiconductor supply chain crises, and the hard reality that a nation’s industrial base may not even be able to produce replacements at the rate that the conflict justifies. 

Soon to be joined by economic and cost-exchange paradigms, traditional measures of success, such as casualty-exchange ratios, will come to prominence. While tactical victories may be achieved in isolated engagements, a nation could suffer broader strategic failure if it continuously depletes multi-million-dollar defense infrastructure to counter cheap, mass-produced weapons. Future military power will be measured not only by troop numbers, but also by computing capacity, energy reserves, software agility, and manufacturing speed. 

Experiences from recent conflicts suggest that contemporary conflict is nearing this technological threshold but has not yet reached it. Advanced AI-enabled combat systems have transformed the battlefield, yet human vulnerability remains. Specifically, support personnel behind or beyond the front lines are now high-value targets because of how their operational and logistical footprint can shape the course of the conflict. 

The decisive test of a robotic revolution will not be whether autonomous machines can reach the enemy. Missiles and drones already do this. The test will be whether integrated networks of semi-autonomous and fully autonomous systems, supported by advanced AI, can prevent the enemy’s machines from reaching friendly safe havens. If robotics can simultaneously generate combat power, protect deployed forces, and reorganize how militaries distribute risk, then it may profoundly change the grammar of war. 

Lieutenant Colonel Matthew J. Fecteau is an information operations officer working with artificial intelligence, and a PhD researcher at King’s College London. The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of War, or the US Government. 

Beyond the Body Count: Will Robotics Change the Grammar of War? was originally published on Global Security Review.

Shifting to upgrading existing airframes with advanced technology rather than developing entirely new 6th-generation aircraft could offer significant long-term benefits. This approach results in substantial cost savings by avoiding the massive research and development expenses associated with new platforms while leveraging existing maintenance infrastructure. Additionally, integrating advanced technologies into proven airframes allows for faster deployment, reducing development cycles from decades to just a few years. Reliability would also improve, as these upgraded aircraft are built on battle-tested designs, avoiding the risks of unproven platforms and costly performance shortfalls.

Another key advantage is the ability to adopt modular and open-architecture upgrades, which enable rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI), sensor fusion, hypersonic weapons, and advanced stealth coatings without requiring entirely new aircraft designs. This incremental innovation approach ensures continuous modernization without the financial and operational burdens of a generational shift. Furthermore, sustaining production of existing airframes stabilizes the industrial base and supply chain, preserving skilled labor and reducing reliance on experimental manufacturing techniques. However, this approach does come with trade-offs.

While upgraded airframes can incorporate many next-generation technologies, they may struggle to compete with emerging peer threats, such as China’s J-20B and a future J-31, which are designed from the ground up with advanced stealth and next-generation propulsion. Despite these limitations, prioritizing enhancements to proven aircraft, while strategically investing in select next-generation platforms, could provide a cost-effective, lower-risk approach to maintaining American air superiority in the evolving global security landscape.

For example, the estimated cost per F-15EX Eagle II is $87.9 million per unit. However, the total procurement cost, including development, support, and spares, can push the price per aircraft to around $117 million. At first glance, this makes the F-15EX slightly more expensive than the F-35A ($82.5 million) but cheaper in terms of long-term sustainment and operational costs, as it leverages existing F-15 infrastructure.

Leveraging emerging technology to enhance existing military capabilities is a cost-effective strategy for extending platform lifecycles, improving combat effectiveness, and increasing survivability. AI and autonomy integration, such as AI copilots for fighter jets and swarm unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), enhance decision-making and reduce risks for human operators. Upgrading legacy aircraft and naval platforms with hypersonic weapons significantly expands strike ranges and lethality, while applying stealth coatings and advanced electronic warfare systems enhances survivability by reducing detectability and countering modern threats. Cybersecurity and network-centric warfare advancements, including real-time data-sharing and AI-driven analysis, improve battlefield coordination across multiple domains, ensuring more effective mission execution.

Meanwhile, integrating directed-energy weapons, such as high-energy lasers on ships and vehicles, provides cost-effective, high-precision air and missile defense without expending traditional munitions. Ground combat platforms, including M1A2 Abrams tanks and infantry systems, are also benefiting from active protection systems and AI-powered targeting, significantly improving survivability and lethality. In space and intelligence, reconnaissance satellites with AI-driven threat detection and persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) drones ensure superior situational awareness. By applying AI, hypersonics, stealth, electronic warfare, and directed energy to proven platforms, the US can modernize its forces without the extreme costs and risks of developing entirely new systems, ensuring long-term military superiority while maintaining fiscal responsibility.

This strategy allows the United States to maintain its military superiority over China’s rapidly expanding and modernizing forces by prioritizing technological advancements over costly new platform development. By integrating AI, hypersonics, stealth, electronic warfare, and directed energy into existing platforms, the US can rapidly upgrade combat capabilities without the lengthy and expensive process of designing entirely new aircraft, ships, and ground systems. This ensures that American forces remain combat-ready and adaptable while China continues to build up its military infrastructure.

One key advantage is speed and efficiency—modernizing proven platforms allows the US to deploy cutting-edge technologies much faster than China, which is still refining its next-generation aircraft, naval forces, and missile systems. Upgrading legacy airframes like the F-15EX and B-52J with hypersonic weapons, enhancing stealth with radar-absorbent materials, and improving real-time battlefield awareness with AI-driven sensor fusion ensure that American forces can strike faster, detect threats sooner, and operate with superior coordination.

Additionally, network-centric warfare improvements, such as joint all-domain command and control (JADC2) and real-time data-sharing, enhance multi-domain operations, allowing the US to maintain an intelligence and decision-making advantage over China’s military.

Survivability is another critical factor. By integrating active protection systems into tanks, directed-energy weapons into naval ships, and AI-driven electronic warfare suites into aircraft, US forces can better counter China’s advanced missile threats, cyber warfare tactics, and mass drone swarms. Additionally, maintaining a robust industrial base through upgrades to existing platforms ensures that production remains scalable and sustainable, unlike China’s military, which relies heavily on state-controlled production with limited battlefield testing of new systems.

By leveraging emerging technologies in a modular, cost-effective manner, the US can remain ahead of China’s growing military without the financial and operational burdens of continuously developing entirely new systems. This strategy ensures that American forces remain agile, lethal, and technologically superior, capable of deterring war and, if necessary, achieving decisive victories in any operational environment.

Joshua Thibert is a Senior Analyst at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies (NIDS) and doctoral student at Missouri State University. His extensive academic and practitioner experience spans strategic intelligence, multiple domains within defense and strategic studies, and critical infrastructure protection. Joshua currently resides in Columbus, Ohio.

Maintaining American Military Primacy Without Breaking the Bank was originally published on Global Security Review.