Europe urged to set rules for autonomous weapons procurement

More than 70 states have indicated they are ready to begin negotiating binding rules at the Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons later this month. The US is moving in the opposite direction: on 30 September, the US Department of War announced an Autonomous Warfare Command, intended to scale autonomous warfare across the military by October 2027.

The announcement also launched Project Meridian, a 120-day study of technologies the US military will need for future wars. It will be led by Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, chief executive of defence firm Anduril, and US politician Newt Gingrich, with findings due in January. SpaceX is a backbone of US national security, while Anduril sells jammers, interceptors and uncrewed combat aircraft to the military. Critics say Musk and Luckey could help identify needs their own companies already meet; the announcement describes no recusal or disclosure mechanism.

The article cites Queen Mary University of London professor Elke Schwarz’s work on how technology firms’ commercial logic can recast moral and legal questions about violence as engineering problems. It argues that this approach is neither technically nor legally workable, and says Project Meridian risks making it the agenda. At the same time, the Trump administration has dismantled parts of the system for learning about civilian harm. The Pentagon’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence went from 40 staff to nine in 2025. The Pentagon inspector general concluded that the department no longer has the personnel and capabilities needed to meet its legal responsibilities. Airwars and other groups documenting civilian harm, the article says, can struggle to get evidence to commands able to act on it.

Autonomous and AI-enabled targeting rely on quality data and feedback, the author argues; without learning from errors, faster systems can repeat mistakes and worsen civilian harm. The article also points to a diplomatic retreat: the Group of Governmental Experts’ final report softened earlier drafts’ proposed obligations on responsibility and accountability into encouragement.

The author urges European governments to support negotiations in Geneva and set requirements for their own procurement without waiting for a treaty. These could include testing standards, contractual limits on civilian harm, legal review from the design stage, meaningful human decision-making and safeguards against speed displacing judgment. Such conditions, the article argues, would give Europe more control over what it buys and require any supplier, American or European, to meet the same standards.