France goes to war with robots.

It is the vision of military strategists. In each decade, widespread armed conflicts become less frequent, but something strange happens in the opposite direction, the planet's military spending explodes in each country, it is a modern paradox, because while humanity talks about peace, it invests billions to prepare wars that I hope never happen. And at the center of this silent race, a new protagonist emerges, military technology. Between 2021 and 2023, United States companies received more than $100 billion in venture funding just to create equipment ranging from anti-drone to lethal systems. The result is an avalanche of machines, sensors and algorithms that make it very easy to predict what the battlefield will be like in a few years, but that did not stop France from betting its chips.

“The robot should facilitate combat, not hinder it” During a military exercise near Paris, General Bruno Barat, responsible for the future combat programs of the French army, made a direct announcement, France intends to place robo-warriors on the front line already in the coming years, according to him, “the first ground-based robo capabilities must be ready in 3 years with more advanced systems before 2040”, not as a distant dream, but as part of a strategy to avoid what they call high-tech warfare. In recent tests, unmanned units with legs, tracks and wheels crossed paths full of traps, avoided obstacles and reacted to conditions designed to assimilate real battles. For the French army, these robots will not only be explorers in the dark, they will be able to act in surveillance, repair operations, demining and even in maneuvers. On this war board, robots would be perfect pieces according to the generals, efficient, silent and politically convenient.