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ARMOR 2025: A Military-Aligned Benchmark for Evaluating Large Language Model Safety Beyond Civilian Contexts

Summary

ARMOR 2025 is a safety benchmark grounded in the Law of War, Rules of Engagement, and Joint Ethics Regulation, designed to evaluate LLMs for defense applications. It features a 12-category taxonomy with 519 prompts and revealed critical safety gaps when tested on 21 commercial models.

SourcearXiv AIAuthor: Sydney Johns, Heng Jin, Chaoyu Zhang, Y. Thomas Hou, Wenjing Lou
ARMOR 2025: A Military-Aligned Benchmark for Evaluating Large Language Model Safety Beyond Civilian Contexts
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[2605.00245] ARMOR 2025: A Military-Aligned Benchmark for Evaluating Large Language Model Safety Beyond Civilian Contexts

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arXiv:2605.00245 (cs)

[Submitted on 30 Apr 2026]

Title:ARMOR 2025: A Military-Aligned Benchmark for Evaluating Large Language Model Safety Beyond Civilian Contexts

Authors:Sydney Johns, Heng Jin, Chaoyu Zhang, Y. Thomas Hou, Wenjing Lou

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Abstract:Large language models (LLMs) are now being explored for defense applications that require reliable and legally compliant decision support. They also hold significant potential to enhance decision making, coordination, and operational efficiency in military contexts. These uses demand evaluation methods that reflect the doctrinal standards that guide real military operations. Existing safety benchmarks focus on general social risks and do not test whether models follow the legal and ethical rules that govern real military operations. To address this gap, we introduce ARMOR 2025, a military aligned safety benchmark grounded in three core military doctrines the Law of War, the Rules of Engagement, and the Joint Ethics Regulation. We extract doctrinal text from these sources and generate multiple choice questions that preserve the intended meaning of each rule. The benchmark is organized through a taxonomy informed by the Observe Orient Decide Act (OODA) decision making framework. This structure enables systematic testing of accuracy and refusal across military relevant decision types. This benchmark features a structured 12-category taxonomy, 519 doctrinally grounded prompts, and rigorous evaluation procedures applied to 21 commercial LLMs. Evaluation results reveal critical gaps in safety alignment for military applications.

Subjects:

Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)

Cite as: arXiv:2605.00245 [cs.AI]

(or arXiv:2605.00245v1 [cs.AI] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.00245

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arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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From: Sydney Johns [view email] [v1] Thu, 30 Apr 2026 21:27:16 UTC (1,375 KB)

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Key points

  • ARMOR 2025 is the first benchmark specifically aligned with military doctrines for LLM safety evaluation.
  • It uses an OODA decision-making taxonomy with 12 categories and 519 doctrinally grounded prompts.
  • Evaluation of 21 commercial LLMs exposed significant safety alignment gaps in military contexts.

Highlights and analysis are generated automatically and may contain errors. Check the original source.