nuclear-news

America’s AI War Has No Civilian Stop Rule

 July 10, 2026, Brian Hudson Foreign Policy in Focus, https://www.juancole.com/2026/07/americas-civilian-stop.html

When the Pentagon made Palantir’s Maven Smart System a formal “program of record” in March, it did more than approve software. It gave long-term status to a platform that analyzes data from satellites, drones, radars, sensors, and intelligence reports to identify potential targets. Maven supported almost all of the 13,500 U.S. strikes in Iran. The designation is meant to secure funding and extend its use across the military.

That decision came while the United States was still investigating the February 28 strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab, Iran. An initial U.S. military inquiry found that U.S. forces were likely responsible, but the Pentagon has not released a final public conclusion. Iranian authorities have reported between 155 and more than 175 deaths, most of them students and teachers. The question is why a military system designed to move faster from information to action has no equally clear public requirement to slow down after grave civilian harm.

In software engineering, an “error budget” is meant to protect users. When a service exceeds an agreed level of failure, new releases stop until the problem is understood and fixed. War is obviously not software. But in Washington’s AI-assisted operations, civilian deaths do not automatically trigger a temporary suspension of the relevant tools, an independent review of the data, or a public account of the decisions that led to the strike.

Advocates of military AI argue that better data and faster analysis can make attacks more precise. That is possible in principle. But precision is not something software simply possesses. It depends on the quality and age of the data, what a system treats as suspicious, and whether people have enough time to challenge its output.

AI does not turn stale or biased information into truth. It can make bad information travel faster. Human Rights Watch has warned that Israeli digital tools used in Gaza relied on incomplete data and inexact estimates that could raise the risk of civilian harm. The lesson is not that every use of AI is unlawful. It is that speed can magnify the consequences of a bad premise before anyone can catch it.

The familiar assurance that a “human remains in the loop” does not solve this problem. A person who sees only a final recommendation, cannot inspect the data trail, and has seconds rather than hours to decide is not exercising meaningful independent judgment. AI can shape lethal force without pulling a trigger. It can determine what appears urgent, which people or places rise to the top of a list, and which facts never appear at all.

The Iran campaign makes this concern immediate. Maven and Anthropic’s Claude were used to process classified intelligence, suggest coordinates, rank targets, and turn planning that once took weeks into real-time operations. That does not establish that AI independently chose every target or that every AI-supported strike was unlawful. Reuters later reported that Palantir faced the task of removing Anthropic technology from Maven. But the larger point remains: the Pentagon is institutionalizing systems built to compress the time for human deliberation before force is used.

The Minab tragedy represents the human cost of treating speed as a virtue in itself. The school had a public website, posted student photographs, and was visible in satellite imagery. It also reported that targeting officials appeared to have used outdated intelligence. The exact role of AI in the strike has not been disclosed. But information apparently did not distinguish the school clearly enough from the adjacent military compound, and the Pentagon has not publicly explained how that failure traveled through the targeting process. That is an accountability problem, not just a technical one.

Congress should establish a civilian stop rule for AI-assisted targeting. Credible evidence of grave civilian harm should trigger a temporary suspension of the relevant system in comparable missions, an independent review of the data and approval process, and a public explanation of the system’s role. This would not treat every civilian casualty as proof of a crime or ban every military use of AI. It would mean families do not have to wait through months of secrecy to learn whether a database, a contractor, or a command decision helped turn a civilian site into a target.

Congress has begun to consider broader guardrails. The House Armed Services Committee’s FY2027 defense bill would direct the Pentagon to extend its AI policy to systems that support or materially influence operational planning, target development, weaponeering, and engagement recommendations. That is a start. But it is not a civilian stop rule. It does not automatically pause a system after a devastating incident or guarantee a public answer.

Such a rule would reinforce the law of war. Customary international humanitarian law requires militaries to take all feasible precautions to verify targets and reduce foreseeable civilian harm. It also requires them to cancel or suspend attacks when it becomes clear that a target is not military or an attack would be unlawful. The Red Cross has recommended after-action reviews and re-testing or suspending AI systems when reliability, safety, or legal compliance concerns emerge. Recent scholarship points in the same direction. Renato Wolf emphasizes precaution throughout AI-assisted target verification, while Jessica Dorsey warns that over-reliance on computational systems can weaken the human judgment needed to protect civilians. If an AI-enabled process makes verification harder because it rewards speed, the problem is a failure to meet an existing legal duty.

Palantir can say it supplies the platform. The Pentagon can say software only supports decisions. An operator can say the data arrived already ranked.

But people grieving outside a destroyed school are left with no clear answer about who is accountable. Until Washington creates a publicly disclosed civilian stop rule, “precision warfare” will remain a technical phrase that conceals a political choice: to accelerate force without a meaningful way to stop, inspect, and answer for its failures.

July 14, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Iran war takes terrifying turn, missiles bombard NUCLEAR plant

Daily Mail, By PHILLIP NIETO, US POLITICAL REPORTER, , 10 July 2026

Donald Trump‘s war has escalated after Tehran retaliated by firing missiles and drones at war-weary US allies in the Middle East, while American strikes bombarded an Iranian nuclear plant.

A day after the President declared the ceasefire ‘over’ and struck more than 170 regime targets, Kuwait and Bahrain faced fresh Iranian attacks on Thursday morning.

Jordan, a US ally, said five Iranian ballistic missiles were fired from northwestern Iran toward an air base in the country, delaying flights across the region. 

Sirens could be heard blasting for civilians to take cover as all Iranian missiles were intercepted, the government says.

Iranian officials claimed that US military strikes sent shrapnel and projectiles slamming into the perimeter of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran.

US strikes on Iran over the last 48 hours have targeted Iran’s military assets near the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway responsible for one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. 

Various Iranian air defense systems, drones, regime speed boats, and missile storage sites have been destroyed, according to US Central Command. US officials claim that the strikes are designed to stop Iran from attacking commercial shipping vessels crossing the strait.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claims it has successfully struck US military bases near the Persian Gulf. The Daily Mail has contacted the Pentagon for comment. ………………………………………………………………

Explosions were also reported in several Gulf nations on Wednesday night, as Iran claimed it attacked US bases in neighboring countries in retaliation.
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15965221/Iran-war-takes-terrifying-turn-missiles-bombard-NUCLEAR-plant-flights-thrown-chaos.html

July 14, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hawaii Bearing Huge Brunt of U.S. Military Buildup Directed Against China

Hawai’i functions as head of a vast Pacific network of bases and surveillance systems

Jeremy Kuzmarov, CovertAction Magazine Jul 08, 2026 -[ RICHLY ILLUSTRATED]

Hawai’i functions as head of a vast Pacific network of bases and surveillance systems, though expiration of military base leases in 2029 offers an opportunity to convert its land to more sustainable uses

n December 2025, Hawaiian Congressman Ed Case (D) issued a press release announcing his support for the $900 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which included $1 billion for military construction projects in Hawai’i.

The projects included a new drydock for the Pearl Harbor naval shipyard, ship support upgrades at the Pearl Harbor-Hickham Base, replacement of the main gate at Marine Corps Base Hawai’i and airfield improvement at the Pacific Missile Range facility.

Case gave a speech before Congress last year asserting that Chinese Premier Xi Jinping was cheering on Republicans who voted against funding the Ukraine War because they were supposedly playing into Xi’s ambitions to establish Chinese global domination—enabled by an isolationist U.S.

Case’s use of Sinophobic rhetoric to justify an expansion of the U.S. military presence in Hawai’i is matched by Hawai’i’s other Democratic Party congresswoman, Jill Tokuda, who sits on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a fear-mongering body that has spread alarmist rhetoric and false accusations directed against China reminiscent of the McCarthy era.^[1]

In late May, the Institute for Policy Studies issued a report—co-sponsored by two human rights NGOs (Āina Aloha Economic Futures and Īlioʻulaokalani Coalition), the Hawai’i Sierra Club and Cost of War Project at Brown University—showing the harrowing cost of the U.S. military presence in Hawai’i that is being accelerated because of the New Cold War.

Entitled The True Cost of the U.S. Military in Hawai’i, the report makes clear Hawai’i’s function as a “central node” in U.S. Indo-Pacific war planning dating back to the U.S. government’s illegal overthrow of Queen Lili’uokalani and the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893.

President Grover Cleveland described the 1893 U.S. Hawaiian coup as “an act of war…committed…without authority of Congress.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The U.S. military currently has more than 107,000 soldiers stationed in Hawai’i and controls an estimated 133 sites, totaling 254,225 acres, plus another 1,017 acres operated by the Hawai’i National Guard……………

The U.S. Pacific Fleet (PACFLT), headquartered at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (JBPHH), is the largest naval command in the world, responsible for miles of ocean, nearly 200 ships, 1,700 aircraft and more than 225,000 sailors and Marines.

Additional key military/intelligence facilities include:

1. the Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site on Haleakalā;
2. the Ka’ena Point Space Force Station on O’ahu;
3. Navy tracking facilities associated with the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) on Kaua’I;
4. a Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station (NCTAMS); and
5. a National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) regional signals intelligence center where Edward Snowden worked.^[4]

Kyle Kajihiro^[5] and Neta Crawford^[6] reported in January that the U.S. Navy proposed an increase in bombing of Ka’ula (an island and seabird sanctuary off Ni’ihau), an increase in training at sea around Hawai’i and California, an increase in the use of underwater explosives, and a higher authorized “take” of marine species.

The U.S. Army has further expanded its training with other countries in Hawai’i through the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center.

These initiatives will only compound the already devastating consequences of the U.S. military presence in Hawai’i chronicled in The True Cost of the U.S. Military in Hawai’i, which estimates that the Pentagon owes Hawai’i between $32.8 billion and $133.7 billion in unpaid rent.

Since 1964, the U.S. military has leased tens of thousands of acres of public trust land in Hawai’i for the token fee of $1 per year.

The above estimate does not include billions in additional costs to clean up environmental damage caused by the U.S. military and destruction of cultural and archeological sites……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://covertactionmagazine.com/2026/07/07/hawaii-bearing-huge-brunt-of-u-s-military-buildup-directed-against-china/

July 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Cut the Pentagon, Save the Planet: The $1.5 Trillion Climate Solution We Can’t Ignore

Without more money to new bases increasingly encircling China, we could collaborate on green technology instead of starting a new ecocidal cold war, and we could stop trampling on the sovereignty of countries throughout the Asia-Pacific like the Northern Mariana Islands.

July 10, 2026, Aaron Kirshenbaum, https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/10/cut-the-pentagon-save-the-planet-the-1-5-trillion-climate-solution-we-cant-ignore/

Last week, millions of people around the world were subjected to record-breaking heatwaves. At least 25 deaths in the U.S. from this heat dome were reported. The French government also counted over 2,000 excess deaths during the June heatwaves. At the same time, this past weekend, a devastating super typhoon hit the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, leaving islands like Rota, where 2,000 people live, without running water and most buildings impacted. 

In both cases, the people least responsible for the climate crisis are the most vulnerable to its effects. And in both cases, people’s ability to withstand crises has been made dramatically worse by militarization. Those most threatened by heatwaves are too often in neighborhoods subjected to militarized policing, economic abandonment, and the exploitation of their communities. Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are occupied by the U.S. military and subjected to environmentally destructive bases and training exercises. 

These climate disasters are not new, but they are coming at a moment when we have an opportunity to do something about them. Congress will soon vote on the Pentagon budget. This year’s proposed budget is an obscene $1.5 trillion, and the cumulative amount of military spending would be even higher. For the first time in years, there will likely be a notable number of Democratic Party votes against it. Senator Ed Markey has also introduced a bill to cut it in half. Cutting this budget could be one of the only pieces of climate policy that can meet the speed and scale of the climate crisis. Fighting it could open up new organizing terrains and break down movement silos that have prevented traction for so long. 

Even without redistributing that $1.5 trillion, cutting the Pentagon’s budget could do wonders for the planet. The Pentagon is the world’s largest institutional polluter. It has over 800 bases worldwide. Each base acts as part of the permanent enforcement mechanism for the fossil fuel industry, driving ecocidal resource wars and entrenching U.S. corporate dominance in oil- and mineral-rich regions. This budget also opens a direct line of funding for more data centers that poison communities and drive further resource wars to power them  At least $30 billion is requested for direct Department of War-owned data centers, over $58 billion is requested for AI capabilities more broadly, and over half of the proposed budget is going to private weapons contractors whose AI programs are directly supported by the data centers being developed around the country. Companies building these centers, like OpenAI, Meta, and Amazon Web Services, have all passed their own multi-billion-dollar deals with the Pentagon.

What could we do with that money instead? The scale of the Pentagon’s environmental destruction and its financial power is unfathomable; each of those 800 bases has generations of stories of destruction, displacement, and long-term illness. Each transaction covers multiple continents. And so the scale of possibility — what we could do alternatively with these resources — is equally immense. 

According to the National Priorities Project, the current $1 trillion Pentagon budget could fund a year’s solar electricity for 1.92 billion homes, for instance. And according to the Climate and Community Institute (CCI), the proposed $500 billion increase alone could cover 60% of U.S. homes. $500 billion could also end the wildfire crisis in California and restore 100 million acres of forest. Of course, the current oil-motivated wars, like the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran, are quite costly. The CCI report estimates that as of early April 2026, the $37 billion that the U.S. had spent on the assault on Iran could have paid for pre-k for every four-year-old in the country, green retrofits for 2,000 public schools, and over double the cost of restoring Trump’s cuts to SNAP benefits. 

We can also point to other pathways for addressing the climate crisis: Instead of funding missile development, we could fund clean technology development. The land taken up by massive, sprawling, and toxic bases could be cleaned up and devoted to cultural sites, schools, agro-ecological farms, regenerative production, and the return of land to indigenous sovereignty and stewardship. New jobs and training programs could be created in all of these areas while, of course, avoiding false solutions such as carbon credits, carbon capture technology, and nuclear energy.

Without more money to new bases increasingly encircling China, we could collaborate on green technology instead of starting a new ecocidal cold war, and we could stop trampling on the sovereignty of countries throughout the Asia-Pacific like the Northern Mariana Islands. We could move toward a fossil fuel treaty and work with extremely vulnerable countries being occupied and sanctioned, like Cuba, to move their own holistic climate adaptation plans forward. 

Fossil fuel supply chains are global, as is the impact of the U.S. military. Many states in the Global South continue to be dominant producers of fossil fuels due to debt traps and sanctions. Global climate finance could help alleviate that debt and fund a transition to truly renewable energy, free from the reproduction of violent extraction often enacted through the mining of so-called “critical” minerals (often deemed “critical” for the sake of military usage), also carried out in states like New Mexico and on indigenous territory. 

This is, of course, just a sliver of what is possible, based on projects, blueprints, and visions already developed by those on the front lines of the climate crisis for decades. In recent years, these visions have been defined and revised in the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba, The Red Deal, and A People’s Green New Deal. This year’s People’s Declaration for a Rapid, Just, and Equitable Transition was developed from a global summit made up of 900 civil society organizations in Santa Marta, Colombia. Notably, its 12th principle emphasizes the irreplaceable and central role of dismantling U.S. imperialism and militarism globally within the much larger framework for confronting the climate crisis — we can and should be just as clear-eyed in our organizing. 

When we cut the Pentagon budget, we can be imaginative. We can see a world where the iron claw of extraction is weakened, and we can begin building something new in its place. The Pentagon budget is a clear target, with the potential to address rising environmental, economic, and public health crises globally. At a time when most environmental policy is almost impossible to pass at the federal level, we can fight against this Pentagon budget and choose to breathe new life into our movements and our world.

July 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment