{"id":162285,"date":"2026-06-16T07:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T07:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/162285\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T07:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T07:10:11","slug":"physical-ai-is-rewriting-the-rules-of-war-israel-cant-miss-it-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/162285\/","title":{"rendered":"Physical AI is rewriting the rules of war. Israel can\u2019t miss it- opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somewhere over Gaza right now, a drone is making a decision. Not a soldier. Not a commander hunched over a screen in a bunker. The drone. That moment, replicated thousands of times a day across active conflict zones, is the clearest signal we have that warfare has entered a new era. The technology driving it has a name most people haven\u2019t heard yet: physical AI.<\/p>\n

Physical AI isn\u2019t chatbots or recommendation algorithms. It\u2019s intelligence embedded in machines that move, perceive, and act in the real world. Autonomous drones. Ground robots<\/a> navigating urban terrain. Naval systems conducting persistent surveillance without crews<\/a>. The output isn\u2019t a report or a prediction. It\u2019s motion, force, and presence. That distinction is what makes it a national security issue, not just a technology story.<\/p>\n

Israel already has the proof of concept<\/p>\n

Israel didn\u2019t stumble into this. The IDF has been one of the world\u2019s most demanding operational test environments for autonomous systems for years. Elbit\u2019s Hermes drones have flown in contested airspace for over a decade. Rafael\u2019s autonomous weapon stations guard Israel\u2019s borders. Iron Dome\u2019s targeting logic, operating under real engagement timelines with zero margin for error, is an early form of physical AI that has already saved Israeli lives.<\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t demonstration projects sitting in a lab waiting for a defense ministry tender. They\u2019ve been used. Tested under fire. Iterated in real conditions.<\/p>\n

What that history creates is something money can\u2019t easily replicate: a generation of Israeli engineers who\u2019ve built systems that had to work when it mattered.<\/p>\n

\"IDFIDF Hermes 450 Zik drone. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON UNIT)<\/p>\n

Unit 8200 and the broader intelligence community have produced AI and sensing talent that understands operational constraints most engineers in the world have never encountered. When those people leave the military and start companies, they carry that experience with them.<\/p>\n

That pipeline is one of Israel\u2019s most underappreciated strategic assets.<\/p>\n

Ukraine changed the calculus for everyone<\/p>\n

The war in Ukraine<\/a> has been a live proving ground for physical AI at scale. Ukraine\u2019s use of FPV drones, coordinated by AI-assisted targeting, demonstrated that autonomous systems can be battlefield-decisive even when deployed asymmetrically by a smaller, outgunned force. The lesson landed hard in every serious defense ministry.<\/p>\n

Russia adapted. Iran-supplied Shahed drones pushed autonomous loitering munitions into mainstream military doctrine overnight. The question being asked in Tel Aviv, Washington, and Beijing isn\u2019t whether autonomous systems matter. It\u2019s how fast you can field them, how many, and how reliably.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s October 7 experience added another layer. While the failure wasn\u2019t technology, the aftermath has driven an urgent rethinking of border sensing, autonomous alert systems, and the human-machine teaming required to respond faster than any purely manual system allows.<\/p>\n

The American bet<\/p>\n

The United States is moving with unusual urgency. The Pentagon\u2019s Replicator initiative is explicit: thousands of autonomous platforms, attritable and expendable, deployed at scale. Not a future program. Funded and in production.<\/p>\n

Companies like Anduril<\/a> and Shield AI are building the integrating software that makes autonomous systems operationally viable. DARPA has been laying the scientific foundation for autonomous ground vehicles and collaborative combat aircraft for years. The money following these companies reflects a consensus that physical AI is where the next decade of military advantage gets decided.<\/p>\n

For Israel, the US trajectory matters for two reasons. First, interoperability. Israeli systems need to work alongside American platforms in any serious conflict scenario. Second, competition. American companies are moving fast into markets where Israeli firms have historically had an edge.<\/p>\n

What Israel needs to get right<\/p>\n

The hardware exists. The talent exists. What\u2019s still underdeveloped is the software stack that makes physical AI scalable and reliable: autonomy software that functions in GPS-denied environments, simulation platforms for testing before deployment, and sensor fusion systems that work in degraded conditions.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the next layer of Israeli defense-tech companies needs to emerge. Not more drones; smarter drones; systems that can operate in communications blackouts, make sound decisions at the edge, and be validated to the standards that both the IDF and NATO partners will require.<\/p>\n

The countries that solve reliable autonomous systems first will have a military advantage that traditional defense spending can\u2019t easily offset. Israel has the operational history, the engineering talent, and the threat environment to be a genuine leader here.<\/p>\n

The window to build that position is open. It won\u2019t stay open indefinitely.<\/p>\n

The writer is a founding partner at Aurelius Capital, a defense-led dual-use technology fund investing in Israeli founders across cybersecurity, autonomous systems, drones, and communications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Somewhere over Gaza right now, a drone is making a decision. Not a soldier. Not a commander hunched…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[1405,19332,2384,37,15213,50979,36],"class_list":["post-162285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence-impact","tag-defense-tech","tag-israel","tag-israeli-innovation","tag-unmanned-aircraft","tag-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116758539445743843","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}