Description
Deterrence has made a comeback in public debates about global threats. This paper questions the relationship between the proliferation of deterrence discourse on the one hand, and the simultaneous proliferation of militarized remote and autonomous systems (RAS) on the other. Drawing upon notions of ritual, performativity, and ambiguity in deterrence theory (Malksoo 2021), I interrogate how RAS may complicate existing deterrence theory and practice. First, RAS complicate traditional human-centred deterrence, where human agents are thought to signal, communicate, threaten, punish, and react to other humans. Yet, the introduction of artificial intelligence into the broad spectrum of conflict - from resort to force decision-making, to drones, lethal autonomous weapons systems, and human-machine teams - undermines deterrence in its displacement of humans and human judgement. Second, while humans are displaced in both the decision-making cycle and in terms of their role in combat, at the same time deterrence paradoxically requires demonstration and visible presence to be effective. Many AI-enabled systems and/or their capabilities are often (naturally or deliberately) invisible and thus cannot be demonstrated. As such, this paper concludes that RAS, encompassing both hardware and software, reconfigure the social meaning of deterrence in their displacement of humans across physical and cognitive domains.
