What It Is
John Severini's June 2026 essay examines how robotic warfare and dual-use AI move military leverage away from mass human mobilization and toward capital-intensive private infrastructure. The piece ties battlefield automation to sovereignty, legitimacy, and the state's changing dependence on citizens versus firms.
When To Use It
Use it when thinking about autonomous weapons, defense software, state-capital power, the political cost of war, or how AI infrastructure changes who actually holds coercive capacity.