Artificial Intelligence's Martial Turn: Mapping the Implications for War and International Order, A Study from Historical Perspective

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Published: Dec 23, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/jpentai.41915
Keywords:
International relations Artificial intelligence International security Military theory Technology and war
Yanzhi ZENG
Department of War Studies, King's College London, UK.
Abstract

This article develops an original analytical framework explaining how civil-military dual-use potential dictates military adaptation pathways for advanced technologies, validated through comparative analysis of railways (high dual-use to Militarization) and nuclear technology (low dual-use to Weaponization), establishing that Militarization drives Systemic Enablement Effects in warfare and Structural Dynamics Modulation in international relations, while Weaponization yields Existential Determinacy Impacts and Foundational Paradigm Shifts; applied to AI, a paradigm-aligned high dual-use case, the framework predicts its Militarization trajectory while revealing critical findings: cognitive emulation bridges technology-warfare epistemological divides, virtual embeddedness enables controlled escalation fantasies corroding nuclear deterrence stability, and decision-system integration creates uncontrolled escalation pathways, with the study's primary contribution lying in generalizable theory-building for technology-security scholarship where AI serves as both validation vector and boundary-testing case.

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