Armed Conflicts in the Agentic Era

The integration of artificial intelligence agents into weapons systems and military operations is one of the most consequential strategic developments of the decade. Lethal autonomous systems (LAWS), drone swarms, offensive AI-assisted cyber warfare and massive synthetic disinformation are transforming the nature of armed conflict at a pace that exceeds international regulatory capacity. This whitepaper analyzes the operational state of autonomous weapons in 2026, articulates an ethical framework based on international humanitarian law and argues that Latin America — due to its tradition of peace, absence of global military ambition and multilateral diplomatic weight — has the historical responsibility of leading the international regulatory effort to prohibit lethal autonomous weapons without meaningful human control.