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Agentic AI and autonomous systems are moving from experimental technology into mature defence and security capabilities. They promise faster sensing, analysis, planning, targeting, logistics, cyber defence, and decision support. But in military and political contexts, the central issue is not productivity. It is legitimacy of command and control.
Defence and national security leaders must exploit the operational advantage of AI without allowing machine speed to erode human judgement, democratic accountability, alliance cohesion, or compliance with law and ethics. The core task is to design human-machine systems in which AI accelerates understanding and execution, while commanders retain authority over intent, escalation, proportionality, and consequence.
This paper argues that the human advantage in the context of military operations is the ability to exercise strategic judgement and human agency under political constraint.
Autonomous systems can compress decision cycles, but only humans can weigh legitimacy, alliance politics, national interest, collateral damage and escalation risks. In the age of algorithmic warfare, the operational advantage will rest of the ability to combine machine tempo with human command.
The human firewall: Preserving military decision-making advantage in the age of autonomous systems and agentic AI
This paper argues that the decisive advantage in AI-enabled warfare will not come from delegating more decisions to machines, but from building command systems that use machine speed to strengthen human judgement, legal accountability, and political control.
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