Commentary: Iran is ending the dream of remote-controlled war

Then came machine learning and artificial intelligence, and with them, the seductive idea that America might finally be able to fight a major adversary indefinitely without sending its citizens into the line of fire. The accuracy and speed with which American forces can now find and destroy enemies with potentially fewer US and civilian casualties are a major advance in the nuts and bolts of warfare. As Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of US Central Command who is leading the war with Iran, said on Mar 11, AI tools can turn targeting processes that “used to take hours and sometimes even days into seconds”.