Responding to Military AI and Security through a Feminist Lens
By Kirthi Jayakumar
The militarization of AI represents a profound acceleration of traditional security paradigms that prioritize technological dominance, state power, and hierarchical control structures. This is not new. Militarism has been a long enduring sociopolitical process whereby an approach, policy, or other mechanism is effectively controlled by, dependent on, or derives value from the military or militaristic criteria (Enloe, 2000; Tickner, 2001). This approach centres the state as the sole referent object of and for security, and prioritizes the political economy of violence. It treats industry as vital to the war agenda, and recognizes the profit-making business opportunity that war is. The addition of AI into this mix now brings an emergent technology stream into an already existing pattern of operations – which means, responding to military AI meaningfully requires us to go to the root cause of these dynamics.
Feminist security scholars and practitioners have consistently challenged the state-centric notion of security that continue to inform the development and deployment of military AI, called for dismantling the institution of war as it stands, and prioritized values of accountability, care, intersectionality, and human security instead. A feminist response to the emergence of military AI and security approaches built around it starts from here.
Shifting away from Traditional Security Frameworks
Traditional security frameworks prioritize the protection of the state and elite interests, without acknowledging or addressing the adverse impacts and setbacks faced by people and communities in the course of these pursuits (Enloe, 2016; Enloe, 2000). As a result, everyday insecurities challenging marginalized communities is sidelined. Military AI exacerbates this dynamic, given that automated systems have the potential to perpetuate existing patterns of violence and discrimination while simultaneously paving the way for the partial or complete removal of human judgment and accountability from critical security decisions (Manjikian, 2014). Feminist approaches to security strive to expand the understanding of the referent object to include more than the state – individuals, collectives, communities, and even the environment. They recognize historical marginalization as a key driver of human insecurity, and call for attention to the many ways in which these insecurities can be addressed through care and accountability (Hudson, 2005).
Military AI systems continue to normalize dominance through technological solutionism. These systems effectively reflect what Carol Cohn (1989) called the “technostrategic discourse” of defence establishments, where human casualties are considered acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of larger, more significant strategic objectives. This informs the process of developing AI, too, where an exclusionary approach to security tech development is normalized. The concentration of power in these spaces means that certain agendas are prioritized – making war precise, speedy, and cost-effective. Feminist approaches to security, by contrast, strive to look at life and security as inter-related, and do not treat the loss of life casually as mere collateral damage. The goal is to avoid resorting to violence, both structural and overt, and establish, rather than to make its delivery efficient. It calls for a comprehensive understanding of lived experiences and meaningful inclusion in order to centre community agency. The emphasis of feminist approaches to security is on human security with an intersectional lens, rather than state security.
Seen from a feminist perspective, security is about collective self-determination, mutual aid and care, and accountability (Takazato et al., 2023). It is about building strength within collectives rather than to look to external protection by state and technological forces (Kirk, 2008). These approaches recognize that genuine security requires attention to the root causes of conflict, rather than approach conflict with violence and sophisticated weapons. In doing so, feminist security prioritizes positive peace – an active striving to ensure that individuals and collectives have all that they need in order to achieve their fullest potential, as opposed to negative peace, which goes for the low-hanging fruit if “no active war.”
Bringing this into the fold for military AI, a feminist approach might move away from building AI for military use at all, and instead, look to see what AI could bring to life in ways that support, expand, and enhance it rather than create new avenues for fear. Transformative justice approaches, developed primarily by feminists from the majority world, offer powerful alternatives to punitive, militaristic security models. They focus on accountability, healing, and prevention rather than deterrence through the threat of violence. Transformative justice principles show us that sustainable security requires a commitment to address harm through community-based processes that centre the needs of survivors and all those who face the harm, while striving to prevent future violence through systemic change.
Conclusion
Feminist approaches to security offer crucial alternatives to the militarization of artificial intelligence, demonstrating that effective security can be achieved through community empowerment, democratic participation, and transformative justice rather than technological dominance. These alternatives do not require abandoning all forms of collective defence, but rather reimagining defence in ways that strengthen rather than undermine democratic participation and human dignity. As military AI systems become increasingly sophisticated and autonomous, the feminist alternative of community-based security becomes both more urgent and more vital for preserving human agency in security decisions.
References:
Cohn, C. (1989). Emasculating America's linguistic deterrent. Rocking the Ship of State, 153-170.
Enloe, C. (2000). Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Enloe, C. (2016). Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link. Rowman & Littlefield.
Hudson, H. (2005). 'Doing' security as though humans matter: A feminist perspective on gender and the politics of human security. Security Dialogue, 36(2), 155-174.
Kirk, G. (2008). Building Genuine Security: The International Women’s Network Against Militarism. Feminist Africa 10 Militarism, Conflict and Women’s Activism.
Manjikian, M. (2014). “Becoming Unmanned: The gendering of lethal autonomous warfare technology,” International Feminist Journal of Politics, 16(1), 52–53.
Takazato, S., Bulawan, A., Ahn-Kim, J., Flores, M., Ikehara, S., & Okazawa-Rey, M. (2023). Feminist vision of genuine security and a culture of life.
Tickner, J. A. (2001). Gendering World Politics: Issues and Approaches in the Post-Cold War Era. Columbia University Press.
