CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Artificial Intelligence Versus Human Stupidity

Photo by Cash Macanaya

The latest technology can prove decisive in war. Think of the atomic bomb in World War II. Or the stirrup in the Mongol conquest of Europe and the Middle East.

More recently, after the two sides had been deadlocked for decades, Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in 2020 in a matter of days and took over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia prided itself on its powerful army and fearsome soldiers. They were no match for the drones that Azerbaijan bought with the proceeds from its oil exports.

“Azerbaijan used its drone fleet — purchased from Israel and Turkey — to stalk and destroy Armenia’s weapons systems in Nagorno-Karabakh, shattering its defenses and enabling a swift advance,” reported the Washington Post‘s Robyn Dixon. “Armenia found that air defense systems in Nagorno-Karabakh, many of them older Soviet systems, were impossible to defend against drone attacks, and losses quickly piled up.”

Ukraine has similarly used drone technology to level the battlefield in its war against Russia. The Kremlin has more money, more soldiers, more heavy artillery, even more drones than Ukraine. But the Ukrainians have proven more adept at producing new varieties of drones that can substitute for scarce Patriot missiles in defending against Russia’s daily aerial assault. Ukraine has also used a variety of drones to strike at targets deep in Russian territory. Drones are the slingshot by which little David hopes to bring down the Russian Goliath.

And now the war in Iran.

Perhaps Donald Trump was persuaded—by his generals, by his buddies in Silicon Valley, by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—that American military superiority would make quick work of the Iranian military. In addition to the aircraft carriers, the Stealth bombers, the Tomahawk missiles, and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, Trump could also call upon the assistance of Claude and his buddies.

Claude, of course, is the artificial intelligence system developed by the company Anthropic, which had objected to the misuse of its model in the U.S. raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Trump retaliated against Anthropic’s caution by ordering the Pentagon to sever its relationship with Claude—only to discover that the AI was already too integrated into U.S. military operations. Not the first conscript ordered to fight against its will, Claude helped the Pentagon identify Iranian targets, prioritize them, and furnish precise coordinates. Going forward, however, the Pentagon will rely instead on Open AI’s ChatGPT.

All of this technological sophistication has not brought Donald Trump the quick victory he so desired. What Trump and company didn’t anticipate—but which any reasonably competent foreign policy professional could have pointed out if DOGE hadn’t cashiered so many of them—was that Iran could rely on much simpler tactics to stymie the combined U.S.-Israeli forces.

History provides plenty of examples of adversaries who successfully defeated U.S. forces despite facing much more technologically advanced weaponry. The Vietnamese endured massive bombing campaigns, Iraqi insurgents relied on IEDs to destroy U.S. infantry forces, and the Taliban outwaited the occupying army. These experiences presumably inspired Donald Trump to promise, as a presidential........

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