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NATO takes on AI as the next great theater of war

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NATO takes on AI as the next great theater of war

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become the next great domain in the theater of war, and NATO allies have made it a top priority as they look to bolster the alliance’s collective defense.

A summit in Washington, D.C., next week will not only commemorate the 75th anniversary of the alliance but will focus on safeguarding NATO in an increasingly hostile geopolitical sphere. 

The global consequences of the war in Ukraine have been far-reaching, and the deepening divides between the West and top authoritarian adversaries has had an effect on everything from defense to trade. 

At the core of how NATO is looking to safeguard itself in challenging times is change in AI technology.  

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A UJ-22 Airborne (UkrJet) reconnaissance drone prepares to land during a test flight in the Kyiv region Aug. 2, 2022, prior to being sent to the front line.  (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)

The reliance on drones in kinetic warfare drastically ramped up with the conflict in Ukraine, prompting an AI race and the need for evolving offensive and defensive strategies.  

“There should be concern about countering Chinese and Russian AI capabilities in wartime, but concern should not be mistaken for despair,” said retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, a senior fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“Just as there are reasons for concern in countering Chinese and Russian kinetic weapons — such as hypersonic maneuvering cruise missiles — the U.S. has the ability to build effective offensive and defensive systems to deter and, if necessary, defeat adversary actions,” he added.

In March, NATO more than doubled its tech accelerator sites under a program known as Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA), which works with private and public companies to develop “deep technologies” to address the alliance’s defense challenges.

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Under DIANA, there will be testing sites in 28 of the 32 NATO nations in a move to support innovation across the alliance in AI, cyber, 5G, hypersonic and autonomous systems.

But the vast expansion of AI capabilities means the alliance is also looking to establish guardrails, particularly when it comes to AI use in wartime. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, receives applause from NATO members, including British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, center, and U.S. President Biden ahead of a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council during the NATO Summit in Vilnius July 12, 2023.  (Doug Mills/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

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“There will be doctrinal discussions at NATO on making sure that we don’t have ‘SKYNET’ take over and start engaging in kinetic action without humans making decisions,” former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defense Investment Marshall Billingslea told Fox News Digital. 

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“As drones become increasingly sophisticated, while remaining inexpensive, and as people introduce artificial intelligence into drones for attack, there is a need for a comparable level of AI that has to get incorporated into countering UAS [unmanned aircraft systems], as well as theater missile defense capabilities,” he said.

Billingslea said AI is already being used effectively by the U.S. when it comes to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, but that is now being expanded throughout NATO.

As the alliance looks to ramp up its collective defense, its AI initiatives are aimed at not only collecting security and intelligence data from all partner nations, but utilizing that intel more efficiently by offloading the human burden of analyzing it.

Firefighters work after a drone attack on buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Roman Hrytsyna, File)

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AI in kinetic warfare is not the only area that has NATO on high alert. 

Propaganda has long played a role in wartime, but the use of disinformation campaigns and malware have become key tools in soft-war operations that can be widely employed using AI, making AI-augmented soft-war tactics a significant challenge to counter. 

“The area of greater concern for me is the use of AI to improve malign influence operations during peacetime or in a crisis buildup,” Montgomery said. “Russia and China have both demonstrated a willingness to operate in the gray zone to a much greater degree than the U.S. and its democratic allies. As a result, Chinese and Russian AI-infused malign influence operations could have a significant negative impact.”

Dependence on Chinese systems has long been debated between the U.S. and its European allies, though Beijing’s ties with Moscow has prompted many in Europe to cut ties with Chinese digital infrastructure companies. 

The war in Ukraine has highlighted NATO’s need to safeguard its members and partner nations, particularly non-NATO countries in Europe and in areas like the Indo-Pacific, from threats posed by AI technologies.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping toast during their dinner at The Palace of the Facets in Moscow, Russia, March 21, 2023. (Pavel Byrkin/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool Photo/AP)

“There’s a coalition of authoritarians that NATO has to deal with, and that is China, Russia, North Korea and Iran,” Montgomery said, pointing to how all four have not only positioned themselves against the West but have done so, in part, by backing Moscow with military and economic aid for its war in Ukraine.

“From my perspective, Ukraine is on the front line of fighting all four of these authoritarian regimes. NATO better step up to support it,” he added. 

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Minnesota braces for what’s next amid immigration arrests and in the wake of Renee Good shooting

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Minnesota braces for what’s next amid immigration arrests and in the wake of Renee Good shooting

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration officer, Minnesota’s Twin Cities on Sunday braced for what many expect will be a new normal over the next few weeks as the Department of Homeland Security carries out what it called its largest enforcement operation ever.

Protesters screamed at heavily-armed federal agents and honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt their operations in one Minneapolis neighborhood filled with single-family homes.

There was some pushing and several people were hit with chemical spray just before agents banged down the door of one home on Sunday. They later took one man away in handcuffs.

“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”

Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.

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People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners in the neighborhood where 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed Wednesday, watching for any signs of federal agents.

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More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .

“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.

The protests have been largely peaceful, but the Twin Cities remained anxious. Minneapolis public schools on Monday will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.

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Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.

While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said on Sunday that the investigation into Good’s shooting death shouldn’t be overseen solely by the federal government.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.

“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened,” Smith said on ABC’s “This Week.”

The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.

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Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”

“That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.

Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn’t be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”

The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests across the country over the weekend.

Thousands of people marched Saturday in Minneapolis, where Homeland Security called its deployment of immigration officers in the Twin Cities its biggest ever immigration enforcement operation.

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Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis, Thomas Strong in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.

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Netanyahu and Rubio discuss US military intervention in Iran amid ongoing nationwide protests: report

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Netanyahu and Rubio discuss US military intervention in Iran amid ongoing nationwide protests: report

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of U.S. intervention in Iran, according to a report.

The two leaders spoke by phone Saturday as Israel is on “high alert,” preparing for the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Iran, according to Reuters, citing multiple Israeli sources. A U.S. official confirmed the call to Fox News Digital but did not provide additional details.

The report comes as nationwide anti-regime demonstrations across Iran hit the two-week mark.

On Saturday, the Iranian regime triggered an internet “kill switch” in an apparent effort to conceal alleged abuses by security forces and as protests against it surged nationwide, according to a cybersecurity expert. The blackout reduced internet access to a fraction of normal levels.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds his end-of-year press conference at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. (Kevin Mohatt/Reuters)

On Sunday, Iran’s parliament speaker warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America strikes the Islamic Republic.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf issued the threat as lawmakers rushed the dais in the Iranian parliament, shouting, “Death to America!” according to The Associated Press.

President Donald Trump offered support for the protesters on Saturday, writing on Truth Social that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”

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IRANIAN MILITARY LEADER THREATENS PREEMPTIVE ATTACK AFTER TRUMP COMMENTS

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

At a news conference Friday, Trump said Iran was facing mounting pressure as unrest spreads across the country.

“Iran’s in big trouble,” he said. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago. We’re watching the situation very carefully.”

The president said the U.S. would respond forcefully if the regime resorts to mass violence. 

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“We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts,” he said.

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Protests in Iran intensify for the 12th day. (The National Council of Resistance of Iran)

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department and White House for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Emma Bussey, Brie Stimson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Four killed, 20 injured in overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine

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Four killed, 20 injured in overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine

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Russia fired more than 150 drones overnight into Sunday targeting close to two dozen locations across Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring 20 more.

Ukraine’s Air Forces say they intercepted 125 drones aerially but confirmed that at least 25 strike drones struck their targets.

They added that Moscow’s latest barrage mainly targeted Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, all of which were targeted in Saturday’s overnight strikes as well.

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Local officials in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia say the strikes targeted residential areas and energy infrastructure. More than 385,000 homes were affected by electric, gas or water outages, at a critical time as temperatures plunged to 10 degrees below Celsius.

Regional lawmakers say service was restored to most of the affected households and areas by Sunday morning, but added that emergency work was still being carried out to restore power to the remaining homes.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of timing their attacks with the cold peaks of winter as to maximise civilian suffering.

“They struck targets that have no military purpose whatsoever – energy infrastructure, residential buildings. They deliberately waited for freezing weather to make things worse for our people. This is deliberate, cynical Russian terror specifically against civilians,” wrote Zelenskyy in a post on X.

He also noted that this week had seen heightened Russian assault on Ukrainian cities, announcing that his country’s defence forces recorded thousands of attacks using a variety of different weapons.

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“Over the course of this week, Russia launched almost 1,100 attack drones against Ukraine, more than 890 guided aerial bombs, and over 50 missiles of various types – ballistic, cruise, and even the Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile.”

The Ukrainian leader thanked all units responsible for protecting the country and responding to attacks, and praised their tireless efforts and resilience.

He also called on allies to ensure his embattled country maintains “stable support”, in defence and diplomatic fields as coordinated dialogue efforts continue in search of peace.

Meanwhile, Russia says that one person was killed in Ukrainian strikes on the western city of Voronezh. Officials say a young woman succumbed to her wounds at an intensive care unit of a local hospital after debris from a drone fell on her house during Saturday’s attacks.

They added that at least three others were injured in the attacks which targeted more than 10 residential apartment buildings, private homes and a high school.

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The city of Voronezh lies just 250 kilometres from the Ukrainian border and is home to approximately one million people. The attacks, which Kyiv have yet to confirm, came after the Kremlin’s major offensive on Ukraine in the early hours of Saturday.

Additional sources • AP

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