Watching the conflict’s future

Dear Editor,

Like many Filipinos these days, I find myself watching war unfold not only on television but on my phone. The videos come from news networks and from overseas Filipino workers in the Middle East — in Dubai, Riyadh and Tel Aviv — sending clips through social media and messaging apps.

Missiles streak across the night sky. Interceptors rise to meet them. Drones explode midair. Sirens wail in the background while people film the spectacle from apartment balconies or office windows.

At first glance, the scenes look like something from a science-fiction film. Unfortunately, they are real-life and they provide us with snapshots of the modern battlefield.

Recent reports say artificial intelligence is now helping militaries sift through intelligence and identify potential targets. Systems developed by companies like Palantir can process satellite imagery, radar signals, drone footage and electronic data far faster than human analysts ever could.

The technology shortens what soldiers call the “kill chain” — the time between spotting a target and striking it. In effect, computers help decide what deserves attention on a battlefield crowded with information.

Human commanders, hopefully, still make the final decision, but the scale and speed of the process are no longer purely human. Believe it or not, the Pentagon was said to have relied on Claude AI in planning the first wave of air attack that, with the help of Israel, took out Iran’s supreme leader.

For us Filipinos watching from afar here in Manila, the experience is both astonishing and unsettling. A nurse in Israel, meanwhile, records rockets being intercepted overhead by the Iron Dome system. A worker in Dubai films drones exploding high above a city skyline. A seafarer somewhere in the Strait of Hormuz (before Iran attempted to close it) shares footage of naval defenses tracking incoming threats.

These scenes reveal how far military technology has advanced.

Major powers are investing heavily in artificial intelligence for reconnaissance, logistics, cybersecurity and targeting. Vast amounts of data — from satellites, sensors and surveillance systems — are fed into algorithms that can recognize patterns and flag threats in seconds.

War is no longer only about soldiers, tanks and aircraft. It is also about data and computing power. This is where the sense of distance becomes impossible to ignore.

While the world’s leading militaries experiment with AI-driven systems, the Philippines struggles to maintain even modest defense capabilities. Our country debates budgets for patrol vessels and radar coverage, while others develop tools that can process entire battlefields in real time.

As I see it, the wars of the future will not be decided solely by numbers of troops or the size of an arsenal. They will be shaped by technology that can interpret vast streams of information and guide decisions at speeds beyond human capacity.

Whether we like it or not, this transformation is already underway.

Yours truly,

Hilarion Ahorro

Tunasan, Muntinlupa