The idea of a battlefield emptied of his soldiers for the benefit of autonomous machines has long belonged to science fiction. Today it is tactical anticipation. The accelerated development of weapons systems incorporating artificial intelligence, combined with the use of drones and autonomous robots, suggests a strategic rocking: that of a war conducted without direct human presenceat least on the front lines. This mutation is organized around a specific conceptual framework, that of 5 ‘d’ – Five types of missions that armies seek to delegate to machines.
1. DUL (boring): delegate repetitive tasks
Long, monotonous and low cognitive value missions are the first to be automated. Air surveillance, maritime patrol, zone recognition, continuous detection of anomalies on sensors: so many tasks where Human fatigue becomes a risk factorand where the machine never weakens.
Surveillance drones persist for hours above conflict zones, supported by image processing algorithms capable of detecting movements, groupings or weak signals. Man only intervenes to validate or reject an alert. Continuous management has become superfluous.
2. Dirty (dirty): avoid human exposure to degraded environments
Theaters contaminated by chemical, bacteriological or nuclear agents impose extreme physical constraints on soldiers. Terrestrial, submarine or flying robots gradually replace human operators For recognition, cleaning, or technical intervention missions.
The AI makes it possible to guide these units in non -mapped environments, to manage the optimization of the trajectories, and to maintain a secure connection with the command. By reducing human exhibition, Automation becomes a health necessity as much as an operational.
3. Dangerous (dangerous): replace man on the front line
This is the most critical dimension: deploying machines where man would risk his life. Kamikazes, autonomous swarms, robotic combat vehicles gradually replace the exposed units.
In urban fights in Ukraine or Gaza, armed or recognition drones enter the buildings, identify targets, and transmit images to units of fire located at a distance. The border between teleoperation and autonomy tends to disappearfor the benefit of shorter decision chains.
The dilemma is simple: Each life preserved militarily is worth the integration of a new machine.
4. Difficulty (complex): automate the analysis where man cannot follow
The volume and diversity of war data – radio signals, thermal images, abnormal behaviors, radar noise – greatly exceed the capacity for human analysis. Artificial intelligence makes it possible to structure this complexity and detect the unusual.
Automatic identification of targets, predictive analysis of enemy movements, prioritization of objectives according to variable criteria: these processes are already partially entrusted to machines. The ability to See before, understand better, act faster is based on this algorithmic delegation.
5. DEAR (expensive): Optimizing resources by automation
Human, logistical and political costs of massive deployment have become unbearable. The AI offers optimization margins: reduction of projected personnel, limitation of material losses, reliability of the logistics chain.
The robotization of the battlefield is not only a tactical choice. She becomes a budgetary choice. By replacing a armored vehicle inhabited by an armed robot controlled at a distance or semi-autonomous, the army reduces its human losses and its costs of intervention.
Towards an algorithmic battlefield
The 5th of sketch a clear trajectory: Replace humans where it does not bring decisive tactical value, no advantage of resilience. The armies do not seek to suppress the soldier, but to reposition his role in an algorithmic war where the first lever of superiority is no longer bravery, but Speed, machine coordination, and the ability to act in extreme conditions.
The battle is no longer played only between armies, but between Technological ecosystemsor not capable of supporting a war piloted by AI. The question is no longer ” When »The machines will replace man in certain segments, but How man will continue to have a central role in a war which he no longer lives physically.
