Something extraordinary happened at the Pentagon’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference this week.

For the first time, the United States publicly acknowledged that it has deployed weapons in orbit.

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told the conference in National Harbor, Maryland, that America has fielded “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.” Two days later, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine warned that American forces must be ready to “fight, endure and win” from “the seabed to cislunar space.”

Consider what else is happening at almost precisely the same moment.

Russia’s war against Ukraine grinds on while drones reshape the battlefield; Reuters reports that NATO’s own defense officials admit the alliance is struggling to keep pace with what Ukraine has learned. The prolonged conflict with Iran has strained American and allied munitions stocks. Washington and Beijing are preparing for a consequential summit even as their AI competition intensifies. And some of the people building the world’s most powerful AI systems warn that development may be outpacing safeguards.

These are usually treated as separate stories. They shouldn’t be.

Together they point to a disturbing reality: artificial intelligence is arriving as a force multiplier exactly when the international system is already under extraordinary strain.

The greatest near-term danger from AI may not be some science fiction scenario where machines turn against mankind. It may be what happens when ever more capable machines accelerate a world already struggling with war, depleted arsenals, orbital competition, and mistrust among nuclear powers.

Expanding the Battlefield, Shrinking the Time to Think

Armies once fought on land, navies at sea; the 20th century added the air, then cyberspace. Now space is unmistakably joining them.

That admission does not make war in orbit inevitable, but it shows how far the competition has expanded, as China and Russia develop their own capabilities to threaten American satellites. Ukraine remains a sobering laboratory for how fast technology can reshape warfare: inexpensive drones have challenged weapons, tactics, and procurement cycles built for a slower-changing battlefield.

The United States possesses extraordinary military capability but not unlimited resources. The Iran conflict exposed that truth: the Pentagon is accelerating missile production because recent combat depleted important inventories.

Artificial intelligence enters that world not as an isolated technology but as an accelerant.

AI promises commanders faster processing, quicker pattern recognition, more rapid decision support. Speed matters in war. But speed is not wisdom. And when nuclear powers are involved, a faster mistake is not necessarily a smaller one.

At Beijing’s Xiangshan security forum this week, military officials and experts from both nations warned that AI could heighten risk in an already deteriorating security environment, since advanced technology compresses the time available for strategic decisions. American and Chinese security experts have proposed something remarkable: nuclear-style safeguards for military AI — protecting nuclear command systems from AI interference, keeping humans in charge of consequential cyberattacks, and building a hotline for AI-related crises.

Neither government has adopted the proposals. But consider why they’re being discussed: an ambiguous AI incident could leave leaders minutes to decide whether they face an attack, a machine error, or something in between.

During the Cold War, American and Soviet leaders learned that deterrence required more than weapons — it required time to communicate, verify, and judge whether a warning meant an attack or a mistake. Artificial intelligence threatens to compress that commodity: we are expanding the geography of war while shrinking the time for judgment.

Then Comes the AI Race

That is why the argument over slowing AI cannot be separated from geopolitics. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for pacing development at the frontier so safeguards can catch up. Beijing heard something else: China’s state-run Global Times branded his proposal a “Cold War playbook” meant to preserve America’s technological edge while restricting China’s access to advanced technology.

There lies the trap. American developers may fear the technology is outrunning its safeguards; American policymakers may fear that slowing down lets China overtake us. Chinese leaders can make the mirror-image calculation — each recognizing real risk yet concluding the greater danger is letting the other reach the frontier first. The result is a strategic paradox: restraint may be prudent collectively while appearing dangerous individually. That is how technological competition acquires the logic of an arms race — a dynamic I trace at length in “The New AI Cold War.”

Intelligence Is Not Wisdom

Here the debate becomes more than technological or geopolitical. It becomes profoundly human.

Scripture never defines wisdom as processing more information faster. It ties wisdom to discernment, prudence, counsel, and moral responsibility. AI may eventually process battlefield data faster than any commander alive. But calculation is not wisdom. Prediction is not prudence. Speed is not moral authority.

Machines bear no moral responsibility. Human beings do. That distinction grows urgent as governments face the temptation to delegate decisions to machines precisely because machines decide faster. The real question isn’t whether a human is technically “in the loop,” but whether that human has enough time, information, and authority to exercise judgment. A commander given only seconds to approve a machine’s recommendation may technically remain part of the process — but whether he has exercised meaningful judgment is another matter entirely.

The Question Trump and Xi Cannot Avoid

That makes next week’s meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, scheduled for September 24 in Washington, more consequential than another round of arguments over chips and trade.

No summit will end the AI competition, nor should Americans imagine that Washington and Beijing’s profound differences can be wished away. But rivals can recognize shared dangers without becoming friends. Both nations have an interest in ensuring AI never independently interferes with nuclear command, launches consequential military action, or turns an ambiguous incident into a crisis before leaders understand what happened — precisely the safeguards American and Chinese experts are now proposing. That would not require America to surrender its technological edge, or China to abandon its ambitions. It would require both governments to admit something more fundamental: some decisions are too consequential to hand to machines.

The World Does Not Need Faster Folly

Scripture offers a warning fit for this moment: “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way” (Proverbs 19:2, ESV). Prudence is not weakness. Nor does it require America to abandon technological leadership — a dangerous world still demands strength, innovation, and the capacity to deter adversaries. But strength without judgment becomes its own vulnerability.

Ukraine still burns. Iran still consumes resources. Space is now contested ground. And artificial intelligence promises to make the whole system move faster.

The world does not lack intelligence. It lacks time for wisdom.

That may be the real test of the AI age — not how intelligent our machines become, or which nation reaches the frontier first, but whether human wisdom can still keep pace with the world those machines are accelerating.