Civilian protection in the age of military AI: What Congress’s new legislative proposals reveal about emerging safeguards

U.S. Army Maj. Steven McPherson, a joint doctrine team chief with the National Guard Bureau, looks at the interface of the Maven Smart System in Arlington, Virginia Feb. 20, 2026. (U.S. Army Photo by Master Sgt. Whitney Hughes)

By Sarah Wilbanks and John Ramming Chappell • Jul 14, 2026

This year, the U.S. military’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) in its targeting has burst into the spotlight. In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that the military used the Anthropic chatbot Claude in the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. In the same month, Anthropic objected to the Pentagon’s rejection of proposed safeguards in the company’s Department of Defense contract, resulting in the Department designating Anthropic a supply chain risk and entering into a contract with Anthropic competitor OpenAI instead. After U.S.-Israeli airstrikes against Iran, CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper confirmed that “warfighters are leveraging a variety of advanced AI tools” in the campaign. In a June 2026 filing for a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI, the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer submitted a sworn declaration stating that the government-oriented version of xAI’s chatbot Grok had contributed to workflows in Palantir’s Maven Smart System – the DoD’s flagship AI-enabled software platform – to deploy “over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours” during the Iran war.

An earlier use of AI in targeting has also come to light. A book by Bloomberg journalist Katrina Manson published in March 2026 revealed that the US military has integrated AI into targeting through the Maven Smart System since at least 2019, when it used the system in the operation that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

As military use of AI fills headlines, members of the Senate are taking steps to regulate and restrict how the Department of Defense develops and uses AI in its operations. In May and June 2026, five Senators with significant national security credentials introduced military AI bills ahead of the Senate’s mark-up of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the foremost defense policy bill passed every year. While differing substantially in scope and approach, the bills collectively represent one of the first serious congressional efforts to establish safeguards around military AI. As the NDAA moves forward, it appears increasingly likely that it will include substantive measures regarding the military use of AI.