Publications
Memorandum No. 195, INSS, October 2019
The battlefield of today has entered a new era in which the use of advanced robotics-based autonomous weapon systems is steadily growing. Given current international circumstances, the United Nations will, in all likelihood, find it difficult to effectively ban or limit their use in tandem with their technological development. Autonomous weapon systems are likely to become the mainstay of combat within the next two decades or so precisely because of the difficulty in restricting them and due to their advantages for any army that deploys them. Given this possibility, this article examines the possible effects of the widespread proliferation of autonomous weapon systems on the future battlefield and on the international arena, particularly its political, economic, and even civil aspects, while referring to fundamental concepts in international relations and security studies. The article stresses that these autonomous weapons systems will have a far greater impact on the world than has been discussed in legal and moral contexts, which, to date, have formed the core of the contemporary discourse on the subject.