AI and War Is Being Oversold

Phillips P. OBrien Aug 08, 2026 ∙ Paid Hi All, I felt the need to write this piece because of the extraordinary strategic failure of the USA in its war against Iran. I gave an interview about this to NPR’s All Things Considered, yesterday on precisely this topic. You can listen to it here. In the interview, I said I did not think people quite understood the gravity of what we had seen in Trump’s War with Iran. The USA, reportedly a superpower and the technologically dominant force of its day, had lost the war in record time, had exhausted supplies of vital munitions that it could not replace for many years, and was now haggling over the terms of its own defeat. Though I did not have time to go into it then, it also made the early Pentagon boasts about how the US was fighting amongst the most ill-considered statements in history. We heard for months about how the US was imposing itself, obliterating Iranian military power, crushing Iran’s industrial base, etc,. All of it was nonsense. I thought, therefore, it would be good to visit one area where such boasts were being made just a little while ago, both about the US bombing of Iran and also the Ukrainian attacks on Russia. A while back we were hearing about how AI was being decisive for both—when actually it was not. AI, or Autonomous systems, is I would argue absolutely the future of war, but it will require investment, planning and sober heads. For now, beware the extreme boasts. AI Failed Against Iran Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Phillips P. OBrien. Or purchase a paid subscription.