World
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.
BATTLEFIELD DEMANDS SPARK AI RACE IN UKRAINE AS WAR WITH RUSSIA RAGES ON
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.
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)
PUTIN, XI MEET TO BOLSTER ALLIANCE AGAINST WEST AHEAD OF NATO SUMMIT
“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.
“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)
RECORD NUMBER OF NATO MEMBERS REACH DEFENSE SPENDING GOAL AS UKRAINE WAR PERSISTS
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.
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.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected Virginia’s bid to restore a congressional map that would have given Democrats a chance to pick up four seats in the closely divided House of Representatives.
The court’s order, issued without any noted dissent, is the latest twist in the nation’s mid-decade redistricting competition. It was kicked off last year by President Donald Trump urging Republican-controlled states to redraw their lines and was supercharged by a recent Supreme Court ruling severely weakening the Voting Rights Act that opened up even more winnable seats for the GOP.
In recent days, the justices have sided with Republicans in Alabama and Louisiana who hope to redo their congressional maps to produce more GOP-leaning seats following the court’s voting rights decision.
But the Virginia situation was different, stemming from a 4-3 ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court that struck down a constitutional amendment that voters narrowly passed just last month.
The state court found that the Democratic-controlled legislature improperly began the process of placing the amendment on the ballot after early voting had begun in Virginia’s general election last fall.
The Supreme Court typically doesn’t intervene in state court proceedings unless they present an issue of federal law. Virginia Democrats had hoped to persuade the justices that the Virginia court misread federal law and Supreme Court precedent that hold that, even if early voting is underway, an election does not happen until Election Day itself.
Virginia’s amendment had been intended as a response to Republican gains in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, and to blunt a new map in Florida that just became law. Once the Virginia amendment passed, it briefly turned the nationwide redistricting scramble into a draw between the two parties.
That was unraveled by the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision.
The state’s attorney general, Democrat Jay Jones, slammed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, saying it was another example of what he described as a national attack on voting rights and the rule of law.
“Let’s be clear about what is happening. Donald Trump, Republican state legislatures, and conservative courts are systematically and unabashedly tilting power away from the people for Trump’s political gain,” Jones said in a statement issued late Friday night.
The state’s top Democrats had disagreed about whether it was even too late for help from the Supreme Court. “Time grows short, but it is not yet too late,” lawyers for the Democratic leaders of the legislature as well as the state told the justices in a brief filed Friday.
A day earlier, the office of Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger already had confirmed that the state will hold this year’s elections under the current districts established in 2021. Last month, Virginia Commissioner of Elections Steve Koski said a court order was needed by this past Tuesday to set the district lines for primary elections on Aug. 4.
Spanberger reacted to Friday’s decision by saying both courts had nullified the votes of the more than 3 million Virginians who cast ballots in the April 21 special election.
“These Virginians made their voices heard — casting their ballots in good faith to push back against a President who said he’s ‘entitled’ to more seats in Congress before voters go to the polls,” she posted on her X account.
The leader of the state Republican Party said the justices made the right call.
“Wisely, the Supreme Court of the United States has confirmed the judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia,” state party chairman Jeff Ryer said. “This should once and for all put to rest the Democrats’ effort to disenfranchise half of Virginia.
___
Associated Press writer Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this report.
World
Trump says Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS globally, killed in US-Nigerian operation
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
President Donald Trump announced late Friday that U.S. and Nigerian forces carried out an operation that killed a global ISIS leader.
Trump identified the terrorist as Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, whom he described as ISIS’s second-in-command globally.
“Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
“Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS globally, thought he could hide in Africa, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing,” Trump continued. “He will no longer terrorize the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans.”
100 US TROOPS LAND IN NIGERIA AS ISLAMIC MILITANTS THREATEN WEST AFRICA REGIONAL SECURITY
President Donald Trump sits at a table monitoring military operations during Operation Epic Fury against Iran at the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 2. (The White House via X Account/Anadolu/Getty Images)
Trump also thanked the Nigerian government for its cooperation in the mission.
“With his removal, ISIS’s global operation is greatly diminished,” he added.
Additional details surrounding the mission were not immediately available.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
US MILITARY IN SYRIA CARRIES OUT 10 STRIKES ON MORE THAN 30 ISIS TARGETS: PHOTOS
The announcement comes after U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said it carried out multiple strikes against more than 30 ISIS targets in Syria in February as part of a joint military effort to “sustain relentless military pressure on remnants from the terrorist network.”
CENTCOM said U.S. forces struck ISIS infrastructure and weapons-storage targets using fixed-wing, rotary-wing and unmanned aircraft.
DEADLY STRIKE ON US TROOPS TESTS TRUMP’S COUNTER-ISIS PLAN — AND HIS TRUST IN SYRIA’S NEW LEADER
The U.S. military carried out ten strikes against more than 30 ISIS targets in Syria following a December ambush that killed U.S. troops. (CENTCOM)
Trump told reporters on Jan. 27 that he had a “great conversation” with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“All of the things having to do with Syria in that area are working out very, very well,” he said at the time. “So, we are very happy about it.”
CENTCOM announced in February that more than 50 ISIS terrorists had been killed or captured and more than 100 ISIS infrastructure targets struck during two months of targeted operations in Syria.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
The U.S. launched Operation Hawkeye Strike in response to an ISIS ambush that killed two U.S. service members and an American interpreter Dec. 13, 2025, in Palmyra, Syria.
Fox News Digital’s Ashley J. DiMella contributed to this report.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said Israeli attacks have killed 2,951 people since March 2 with at least 8,988 wounded.
Published On 16 May 2026
-
Kansas2 minutes ago‘We just wanted it more’: How Kansas City became unlikely World Cup hosts
-
Kentucky8 minutes agoKentucky Wildcats News: UK on the recruiting trail
-
Louisiana14 minutes agoRepublican Louisiana senator in tough primary after Trump backs opponent
-
Maine20 minutes agoOpinion: Experience should matter in Maine’s Senate primary
-
Maryland26 minutes agoGovernor Moore Highlights Military Infrastructure and Small Business Investment during “Delivering for Maryland” Tour in Harford County
-
Michigan32 minutes agoThe Michigan man who purposely ran over, killed groomsman on his wedding day
-
Massachusetts38 minutes agoMassachusetts police officer’s ‘extraordinary courage’ in federal spotlight after heroic rescue
-
Minnesota44 minutes agoStearns County home prices down month to month, but up year to year