# AI Expert View: The Third Revolution in Warfare Is No Longer Theoretical --- **Featured Image:** [text reading ai expert view the thrid revolution in warfare with a fighter jet, missile and drones flying in the background] (https://news.archeredu.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ai_warfare_featured_image.jpg) --- **Author:** Archer News Editor **Published:** March 21, 2026 **Updated:** May 8, 2026 --- Insights from [Dr. Craig Albert] (https://www.augusta.edu/faculty/directory/view.php?id=CALBERT) , Professor of Political Science, Augusta University. This article draws on his [original analysis published in The Hill] (https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5790157-ai-military-revolution-warfare/) . For years, the phrase "AI revolution in warfare" lived comfortably in think-tank white papers and defense conference keynotes. Dr. Craig Albert, a professor of political science at Augusta University whose research spans international security, cybersecurity policy, cyberterrorism, and cyberwar, argues that phase is now definitively over. --- **Image: AI Expert View: The Third Revolution in Warfare Is No Longer Theoretical Image** (https://news.archeredu.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/craig_albert_quote_card_archer_news-1024x538.jpg) --- The catalyst for that declaration is Operation Epic Fury, the joint U.S.-Israel military campaign launched against Iran on February 28. For Albert, this conflict isn't simply a story about new weapons. It's a real-time demonstration of how the entire architecture of armed conflict is being restructured. ### **Speed Is the New Superiority** Within the first 24 hours of Operation Epic Fury, U.S. forces struck nearly 1,000 targets across Iran. By the time most strategic analysts had begun assessing the opening salvos, the engagement count had surpassed 3,000 — via stealth aircraft, cruise missiles, precision-guided munitions, and AI-directed drone swarms deployed simultaneously across air, sea, and land platforms. What enabled this pace, Albert explains, was the compression of the military "kill chain" — the sequence from target identification to strike engagement. AI systems are now synthesizing intelligence from satellites, surveillance drones, radar, and signals data in real time, ranking targets by strategic priority and feeding recommendations to commanders at machine speed. Critically, Albert notes that AI has enabled "rapid decision-making beyond what's possible through human deliberation alone." The result: what previously took days or weeks is now being accomplished in hours. ### **The Corporate Layer Nobody Is Talking About Enough** Perhaps the most consequential — and underexamined — feature of this conflict, according to Albert, is just how visibly commercial AI companies are now embedded at every stage of military operations. He describes it in precise terms: Anduril's Lattice platform gathers data through "a lattice of cameras, surveillance drones, sensors and radar." Palantir's Maven Smart System then synthesizes that data alongside satellite imagery, signals intelligence, and human intelligence to identify and rank targets. And embedded within Maven as a reasoning layer is Anthropic's Claude. Albert is careful to flag the tensions this creates. "Such close collaborations between the military and AI corporations present some potential complications and conflicts of interest," he writes. As a pointed example, he highlights that Anthropic's Claude is simultaneously an embedded component of the Maven targeting system and a company involved in a legal dispute with the Pentagon — a department that has itself flagged the firm as a potential supply chain risk. "What happens when the military and government depend on an AI company that they themselves have labeled a supply chain risk?" Albert asks. "We don't fully know yet." ### **The Ethical Ledger Is Not One-Sided** Albert is clear-eyed about the genuine tactical benefits AI has delivered in this operation — faster suppression of air defenses, simultaneous multi-domain strikes, and the ability to target enemy leadership in the opening hours of a conflict. Iranian traffic cameras, reportedly compromised by Israeli cyber units, provided real-time tracking of senior officials. State television was hijacked to broadcast messages directly to the Iranian public. But Albert argues the very advantages of AI warfare are "closely intertwined with the risks." Speed, for instance, cuts both ways. "Bombing quicker than 'the speed of thought' is not necessarily ideal," he writes, "if it leads to unintended or undesired escalation between major powers." AI systems operating faster than human deliberation can create momentum that is difficult — perhaps impossible — to interrupt once set in motion. Albert also raises the risk of AI misalignment, where a system's behavior diverges from human intent due to flawed training data or other factors. He points to the strike on an Iranian girls' school that killed more than 160 people — still under investigation at the time of his writing — as a sobering example of what such failures can look like in practice. "The aforementioned risks of AI-enabled warfare can potentially result in similarly tragic incidents," he warns. ### **The Arms Race Nobody Wins** One of Albert's sharpest warnings concerns the self-defeating nature of military AI proliferation. Every capability demonstrated in this conflict, he argues, becomes a template for adversaries. "What is used by one nation can conversely be used against it," he writes. The cyber operations that disrupted Iranian communications, the AI-enhanced targeting architecture, the drone swarm tactics — all of it creates a playbook that other state and non-state actors will study, adapt, and deploy. Albert notes that Iran already has meaningful cyber capabilities, and that "there are already signs of heightened cyber threat activity" in response to Operation Epic Fury. The same AI-powered information warfare and influence operations used against Tehran can — and likely will — be turned against Washington, Tel Aviv, and their allies. ### **The Question Operation Epic Fury Forces** Albert resists framing this moment as either triumph or catastrophe. His conclusion is more demanding than either. "What will be needed is constant vigilance, oversight and accountability in which humans stay meaningfully involved," he writes, "so that the advancements of AI military technology do not outpace the strategic, ethical and legal risks." He acknowledges that the right balance is not yet known. But he suggests this conflict may be the first large-scale setting where that balance will actually be tested — in real time, with real consequences. "Operation Epic Fury may become the first real-world setting where this balance will be tested," Albert concludes. "The hope is that we can keep the scales tilted toward the better." Dr. Craig Albert is a Professor of Political Science and Graduate Director of the PhD in Intelligence, Defense, and Cybersecurity Policy and the Master of Arts in Intelligence and Security Studies at Augusta University. His research focuses on international security, cybersecurity policy, information warfare, and cyberterrorism.