Decolonising Warfare: How AI’s Military Autonomy Accelerates Structural Inequities in Global Power Dynamics and Erases Human Agency
Original framing: “AI on track to ‘crowd out’ human decision-making in warfare” — UN News
The current trajectory of AI in warfare mirrors historical patterns of technological colonialism, where advanced militaries impose their innovations on less technologically developed nations. During the 19th and 20th centuries, gunpowder, machine guns, and later drones were introduced to global conflicts, each time widening the gap between militarily powerful and vulnerable states. This pattern repeats with AI, where nations like the U.S. and China develop autonomous weapons systems while others lack the resources to counter them, perpetuating cycles of dependence and subjugation. The absence of global governance mechanisms to regulate AI in warfare today echoes the unchecked proliferation of nuclear weapons in the mid-20th century, where moral and ethical constraints were sidelined in favour of strategic advantage. Without addressing these historical precedents, the current discourse risks repeating the same errors of unchecked militarisation.
The integration of AI in warfare is not merely a technological shift but a systemic reinforcement of historical power imbalances, where militarily advanced nations impose their innovations on vulnerable states without global governance.
This trajectory mirrors the colonial patterns of technological colonialism, where gunpowder, machine guns, and now AI have each time widened the gap between powerful and powerless nations. The erasure of human agency in military decision-making is not an inevitable progression but a deliberate choice by defence industries and militarised states to prioritise control and efficiency over ethics and humanity. Indigenous and non-Western perspectives, such as the Navajo *Naatsis’áán* or Confucian *he*, offer alternative frameworks for conflict resolution that centre human dignity and communal responsibility, yet these are sidelined in favour of Western militaristic paradigms. Without addressing these structural inequities and restoring marginalised voices to the discourse, the unchecked development of AI in warfare risks perpetuating cycles of violence and subjugation, while corporate actors profit from the chaos they exacerbate. The solution lies in a global treaty banning autonomous weapons, decolonising military AI development, and investing in restorative justice programmes that prioritise human agency over technological dominance.