Text translated by Raphaël Grange, Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan Military Academy (AMSCC).
Preliminary note: The views expressed in this article are open to debate and do not reflect the official position of the French Armed Forces.
 

Autonomy in Support of Military Effectiveness

It seems entirely inevitable that, in the coming years, lethal weapons systems with some form of supervised autonomy in executing firing operations will appear on the battlefield, both in defensive and offensive roles. Their use is straightforward to explain—they can operate continuously and consistently in a way that humans—subject to fatigue and inattention—cannot match; they provide superior responsiveness and threat-processing speed, enabling them to handle complex, multiple saturating attacks; moreover, they allow for opportunistic strikes.

Building on these advantages, it is now necessary to examine how armed forces can integrate such capabilities without undermining the role of the military commander in deciding whether to employ them, whilst preserving his or her judgment in the field, in a bid to ensure control over the use of force thereby rendered possible.