The Latest Chapter In American Military Muddling

Noema Magazine reports on the fallout from AI-guided targeting in the recent U.S.-Israel air campaign against Iran, including a strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School that killed one hundred fifty people, one hundred twenty of them children. According to the piece, the Maven Smart System — an AI platform integrating video, signals intelligence, radar and historical data — used outdated information that failed to reflect the school had opened a decade earlier; a human remained "in the loop" but didn't reverify satellite feeds before the strike. The author, John Arquilla, ties the failure to the Air Force's push for high operating tempo, citing a Dragon initiative goal of one thousand targets per hour, and traces a long pattern of strategic bombing campaigns — from Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan — that failed to secure decisive victory on their own.

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