Artificial Intelligence and National Security: The Great Unbundling of Warfare
The Unbundling of the State's Ultimate Power
What happens when the decision to engage in conflict—a choice historically bound to human strategy, conscience, and consequence—is unbundled from the human mind? For millennia, the power of the state has been rooted in a bundled capability: the integration of human intelligence, political will, and physical force. Today, as artificial intelligence permeates the defense sector, we are witnessing the systematic unbundling of these core functions, a process with consequences that will redefine global power for the next century.
This seismic shift is a central theme in J.Y. Sterling's book, "The Great Unbundling: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining the Value of a Human Being." Just as AI isolates and optimizes individual human skills in the commercial world, it is now disaggregating the foundational components of national security. Intelligence analysis is being unbundled from the human analyst, tactical execution from the soldier, and, most critically, strategic calculation from the seasoned general. Understanding this framework is essential for anyone seeking to grasp the future of artificial intelligence and national security.
- For the AI-Curious Professional: This page decodes the strategic landscape, revealing how AI is not just another tool but a force fundamentally altering military operations and geopolitical competition.
- For the Philosophical Inquirer: We will explore the profound ethical questions that arise when lethal force is delegated to algorithms, challenging long-held beliefs about sovereignty and moral responsibility in war.
- For the Aspiring AI Ethicist/Researcher: This analysis provides a grounded, critical examination of current military AI applications, policy debates, and the urgent need for new governance models, backed by insights from leading defense and technology institutions.
The Engine of Unbundling: How AI is Redefining the Battlefield
Capitalism and nation-state competition act as a dual-engine, accelerating the unbundling of military capabilities at a breathtaking pace. The U.S. Department of Defense is heavily invested, with the President signing legislation in July 2025 allocating over $1 billion for federal AI advancement, including significant funds for naval, cyber, and testing commands. This investment is directed at creating a new kind of military advantage by deconstructing traditional roles.
Unbundling Intelligence from the Analyst: The Rise of Algorithmic Surveillance
The first capability to be dramatically unbundled is intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). Historically, a team of human analysts would painstakingly review satellite photos, intercept communications, and connect disparate data points. Today, AI systems can analyze petabytes of data in near real-time.
- AI-Powered Image Recognition: Algorithms can now scan thousands of hours of drone footage or satellite imagery to identify enemy hardware, troop movements, or changes in infrastructure with a speed and accuracy no human can match.
- Predictive Analysis: By ingesting vast datasets, AI models aim to predict potential conflict zones or terrorist activities before they occur, shifting intelligence from a reactive to a proactive posture. Israel's "Habsora" system, for example, has been used to generate targets by identifying suspected militant affiliations within vast networks of data, a task of a scale previously unimaginable.
Unbundling the Pilot from the Cockpit: The Dawn of Autonomous Weapons
The drone, a staple of modern warfare, represents an early stage of unbundling. The next step, already underway, is lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS)—machines that can independently search for, identify, and engage targets without direct human input. Programs like the U.S. Air Force's plans for Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or "robot wingmen," aim to pair human pilots with autonomous drones that can scout, defend, and even attack, effectively unbundling the tactical execution of air combat from the single human operator. This move from remote control to true autonomy marks a pivotal moment in the unbundling of warfare.
Unbundling Strategy from Human Generals: AI in Command and Control
Perhaps the most profound unbundling is occurring in the realm of command and control (C2). The U.S. military's ambitious vision for Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) aims to create a "combat cloud" where data from every sensor—on land, at sea, in the air, in space, and in cyberspace—is fused and processed by AI.
The goal is to unbundle strategic decision-making from the limitations of the human brain. An AI-enabled C2 system could process information, identify the most critical threats, and recommend optimal responses faster than any human command staff. It separates the analytical component of strategy from the intuition and experience of a general, promising unparalleled speed but raising critical questions about the role of human judgment.
The Unbundled World: Geopolitical Consequences and Existential Risks
As the core functions of national security are unbundled, the very nature of global stability is altered. This new reality, a key focus of Part III of "The Great Unbundling," presents both novel threats and profound philosophical challenges.
The New Arms Race: An AI Cold War
The competition between the United States and China is increasingly defined by a race for AI supremacy. The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) delivered a stark warning in its final report: America is not prepared to defend or compete in the AI era. The commission stressed that China is investing immense resources to become the world's primary AI innovation center by 2030 and is integrating AI into its military at an alarming rate. While estimates vary, some analyses using purchasing power parity suggest China's effective military expenditure is over half that of the U.S., allowing for massive investment in these new technologies. This rivalry creates a high-stakes environment where falling behind in military AI could mean ceding global influence.
The Unbundling of Deterrence and Escalation
For decades, the logic of nuclear deterrence rested on the shared understanding that human leaders, aware of the catastrophic consequences, would restrain themselves. AI disrupts this delicate balance. The risk of "flash wars"—conflicts that escalate at machine speed, faster than human diplomats or commanders can intervene—is now a real concern. If both sides deploy automated offensive and defensive systems, a minor skirmish could trigger a cascade of responses, leading to a full-scale war without a conscious human decision. This unbundles the act of escalation from the deliberative process of human leadership.
The Philosophical Challenge: When Algorithms Wield State Power
When an AI system recommends a strike that results in civilian casualties, who is morally responsible? The programmer? The commanding officer who trusted the system? The state that deployed it? As we unbundle the act of warfare from direct human agency, we dissolve traditional lines of accountability. This isn't just a technical problem; it's a profound philosophical crisis discussed in "The Great Unbundling." It forces us to question the very basis of justice and responsibility when the state's coercive power is delegated to non-conscious, silicon-based intelligence.
The Great Re-bundling: Human Agency in an Age of Automated Conflict
The unbundling of national security is a powerful, perhaps inevitable, trend. However, as argued in the final part of J.Y. Sterling's work, humanity is not a passive observer. The response lies in a conscious and deliberate effort to "re-bundle" our capabilities, asserting human values and control over these powerful new systems.
Forging New Armor: The Imperative of "Meaningful Human Control"
The most critical re-bundling effort is the global push for "meaningful human control" over lethal autonomous weapons. This principle, advocated by ethicists and an increasing number of nations, insists that a human must always retain the final authority to approve a lethal action. This isn't a rejection of technology but a re-bundling of AI's analytical speed with human ethical judgment. Reports from institutions like the RAND Corporation and the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) consistently highlight the need for robust governance frameworks to prevent catastrophic accidents or unintended escalation.
Practical Solutions: AI Counter-Measures and Resilient Systems
A key area for human ingenuity is in developing defenses against adversarial AI. This includes creating systems that can detect when an enemy has manipulated our training data (data poisoning) or is attempting to fool our recognition systems. This re-bundling involves humans designing more robust, secure, and transparent AI architectures, ensuring that we understand their limitations and failure modes.
Re-bundling Purpose: The Future Role of the Human Soldier and Strategist
As AI unbundles the tactical and analytical tasks of the past, the role of the human in the military must evolve. The soldier of the future may be less of a frontline combatant and more of a system operator, an ethical overseer, or a maintainer of complex AI-driven machinery. The future general may spend less time on logistical calculations and more on grand strategy, diplomacy, and defining the ethical "rules of engagement" for their autonomous systems. This is the ultimate re-bundling: focusing human capabilities on the very things machines cannot replicate—wisdom, empathy, moral courage, and true understanding.
Conclusion: Navigating the Unbundled Future of Security
The convergence of artificial intelligence and national security represents one of the most significant and disruptive trends of our time. Through the lens of "The Great Unbundling," we can see it not as a simple upgrade of military hardware, but as a fundamental deconstruction of how power, strategy, and violence have been managed for centuries.
This unbundling brings with it the promise of unparalleled efficiency and the peril of catastrophic loss of control. It is an inevitable technological tide, but the future is not yet written. By consciously focusing on "re-bundling"—integrating human judgment, ethics, and purpose back into the systems we create—we retain our agency to shape a future where technology serves humanity's security, rather than undermining it.
Call to Action
- To delve deeper into the framework that explains this monumental shift across all sectors of society, explore J.Y. Sterling's foundational book, The Great Unbundling: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining the Value of a Human Being.
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- See how this same unbundling process is transforming other fields by reading our analysis on the future of work and universal basic income.