The article argues that recent executive overreach and politicization have severely undermined established norms of U.S. civil-military relations. To restore professional standards, the incoming Congress must actively exercise its oversight powers, moving beyond mere criticism to demanding transparency in defense policy and personnel decisions. Key reforms include enforcing meritocratic promotion processes, requiring documented justification for senior officer removals, and preventing the partisan use of the military. These actions are crucial for bolstering public trust and ensuring the military remains a nonpartisan instrument of civilian control.
The AI Autocrat
English Summary
AI provides autocratic regimes with powerful tools for surveillance, censorship, and governance, allowing them to reduce reliance on unreliable human subordinates by automating state functions. Evidence from China and Russia shows the deployment of AI for everything from smart city monitoring to automated propaganda, significantly increasing state control efficiency. However, this dependence merely shifts vulnerability from the masses to a small, specialized cadre of engineers and data scientists. Policymakers must recognize that this 'digital Praetorian Guard' represents a new, highly concentrated point of failure, giving these technical elites immense, potentially destabilizing, leverage over the regime.
中文摘要
人工智慧為威權政權提供了強大的監控、審查和治理工具，使其能夠透過自動化國家功能，減少對不可靠的人力下屬的依賴。來自中國和俄羅斯的證據顯示，AI已被部署用於從智慧城市監測到自動化宣傳的各個環節，顯著提高了國家控制效率。然而，這種依賴僅僅將脆弱性從群眾轉移到一小群專業的工程師和數據科學家身上。政策制定者必須認識到，這種「數位保皇團」代表了一個新的、高度集中的故障點，賦予這些技術精英對政權巨大的、潛在的不穩定槓桿。
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