Ukraine’s AI-driven militarisation: systemic escalation of autonomous warfare amid global arms race

Indigenous perspectives on warfare prioritise relational accountability and the sanctity of life, framing autonomous systems as a violation of sacred covenants between humans, land, and ancestors. The Māori principle of *kaitiakitanga* (guardianship) rejects the outsourcing of lethal decisions to machines, viewing such technology as a disruption of communal harmony. In the Americas, the Zapatista movement’s rejection of militarised AI aligns with their broader critique of extractive technologies imposed by state and corporate actors.

The militarisation of technology has deep historical roots, from the invention of gunpowder to the nuclear arms race, where each innovation was justified as a 'necessary evil' to offset perceived threats. The current AI-driven arms race mirrors the 19th-century industrialisation of warfare, where railroads, telegraphs, and later drones were framed as force multipliers that reduced human casualties—only to expand the scale and lethality of conflict. Historical precedents show that technological escalation rarely leads to de-escalation, instead normalising perpetual war as a state of exception.

Cross-culturally, the deployment of autonomous weapons challenges diverse ethical frameworks: in Japan, the Buddhist concept of *mujō* (impermanence) underscores the futility of relying on machines in a world of constant change, while in Islamic jurisprudence, the principle of *darura* (necessity) is invoked to argue against AI-driven killing as a violation of *hudud* (divine limits). African philosophical traditions, such as Ubuntu, reject the dehumanisation inherent in autonomous warfare, framing it as a betrayal of shared humanity. These perspectives highlight a global consensus against LAWS that is systematically excluded from Western narratives.

Scientifically, the reliability of autonomous weapons remains unproven, with studies showing that AI systems in high-stakes environments exhibit unpredictable behaviour, especially under adversarial conditions like electronic warfare or cyberattacks. The US Department of Defense’s own 2023 report on AI in warfare acknowledges that autonomous systems can fail in unpredictable ways, yet this uncertainty is downplayed in favour of technological determinism. Ethical AI research, such as the 2022 *Nature Machine Intelligence* study on lethal autonomy, demonstrates that current systems lack the contextual reasoning required for ethical decision-making in war.

Artistic and spiritual traditions often depict war as a rupture in cosmic order, a theme echoed in Ukrainian folk art (*vyshyvanka* embroidery) which symbolises protection and communal bonds—values eroded by autonomous warfare. Russian iconography, with its emphasis on martyrdom and divine justice, frames AI-driven killing as a sacrilege against the sanctity of human life. In Western art, dystopian narratives like *Terminator* or *WarGames* serve as cautionary tales, yet these critiques are dismissed as 'science fiction' rather than ethical warnings. The spiritual dimensions of war—such as the Orthodox Christian concept of *podvig* (heroic sacrifice)—are co-opted to justify technological escalation, obscuring their original meaning.

Future modelling suggests that the proliferation of autonomous weapons will lead to an arms race where states and non-state actors deploy increasingly sophisticated systems, lowering the threshold for conflict initiation. Scenario planning by the *Future of Life Institute* warns that AI-driven warfare could trigger cascading miscalculations, as seen in the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm, but with far greater speed and opacity. The integration of AI into military decision-making also risks creating feedback loops where machines escalate conflicts beyond human control, as demonstrated in simulations by the *Stanford Center for Security and International Cooperation*.

Marginalised voices—including Ukrainian pacifists like the *Razom* movement, Russian anti-war activists targeted by state repression, and affected communities in Mariupol and Bakhmut—are systematically excluded from mainstream narratives, which frame the conflict as a binary between Ukrainian resistance and Russian aggression. Indigenous scholars from conflict zones, such as the *International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change*, have condemned autonomous weapons as a form of environmental violence, given their potential to contaminate land and water with depleted uranium and other toxic byproducts. The Global South’s calls for a ban on LAWS, led by countries like Brazil and South Africa, are dismissed as 'idealistic' rather than as ethical imperatives.