AI Has Created A Nuclear Arms-Control Problem

U.S. and Chinese security experts are calling for nuclear-style safeguards around artificial intelligence, warning that an autonomous system interfering with nuclear command networks or launching a military cyber operation could trigger retaliation before either side determines whether the action was deliberate.

The recommendations, developed through a longstanding U.S.-China dialogue on artificial intelligence and national security, call for red lines around nuclear systems, human control over consequential cyberattacks and a dedicated hotline for incidents involving autonomous AI.

The proposals come ahead of planned government-level discussions on AI and an expected Sept. 24 meeting in Washington between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The recommendations were published last week by Melanie Sisson, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Tianjiao Jiang, an associate professor at Fudan University. Both participated in the U.S.-China AI and national security dialogue convened since 2019 by Brookings and Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy.

The proposals illustrate how U.S.-China competition over artificial intelligence is expanding beyond advanced chips and models into questions traditionally associated with arms control: preventing accidents from being mistaken for attacks, limiting machine-made military decisions and establishing communication channels between nuclear-armed rivals when autonomous systems behave unexpectedly.

China’s State Security Minister Chen Yixin wrote this week in a government outlet that AI “fundamentally transforms the form of military struggle”. He said AI had moved from a supporting role on the battlefield to a key role, citing AI-directed strikes in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

Sisson argued that humans should retain sole authority to initiate AI-enabled cyberattacks against another country’s nuclear command, control and communications systems or strategically important infrastructure.

An autonomous system could malfunction, exceed its instructions or be compromised, while the country targeted could struggle to determine whether an intrusion was accidental, unauthorised or ordered by its rival.

Jiang proposed explicit red lines preventing AI from independently deciding to use nuclear weapons or autonomously attacking nuclear command systems. He also called for protections around critical infrastructure, including energy, finance and healthcare.

Jiang urged the two countries to establish a shared definition of “meaningful human control”, arguing that otherwise both could use the same language to justify different levels of machine autonomy.

The proposal builds on a principle endorsed by then-U.S. President Joe Biden and Xi in November 2024 that humans should retain control over decisions to use nuclear weapons.

Lora Saalman, an associate senior fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, wrote in February that the principle represented an important area of U.S.-China convergence, even as both countries showed signs of integrating AI more deeply into nuclear and nuclear-related systems.

Jiang also proposed a dedicated U.S.-China military hotline for AI incidents, warning that automated cyber exchanges could escalate faster than humans can intervene.

One country’s defensive AI could automatically respond to suspicious activity, while the other side could interpret that response as an attack and retaliate before establishing what had actually happened.

A dedicated channel could allow one government to tell the other that an unusual AI operation was accidental, unauthorised or still under investigation before it was treated as deliberate state action.

But experts have questioned whether an additional communication mechanism would be effective given the limitations of the existing U.S.-China military crisis hotline.

Carla Freeman of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies has cited Chinese officials’ refusal to answer U.S. counterparts’ calls during the “spy balloon incident” in February 2023.

China’s rigid top-down bureaucracy can also prevent lower-ranking officers from taking the initiative during encounters with U.S. counterparts, Freeman wrote in an article for War on the Rocks in January.

“No one in the Chinese system wants to communicate with the United States until the top leadership in consultation with relevant actors within China’s party-state have decided on a response, which may take ⁠days if not longer,” she said.

Neither Washington nor Beijing has publicly endorsed the Brookings-Tsinghua proposals.

China has, however, increasingly brought AI into its existing arms-control bureaucracy. AI is a formal portfolio of the Foreign Ministry’s Department of Arms Control, which also handles nuclear weapons, non-proliferation, missiles and other international security issues.

Shen Jian, China’s ambassador for disarmament affairs, told a U.N. meeting in Geneva in June that military AI could affect strategic stability and increase the risks of miscalculation and conflict escalation. He said weapons should remain under human control.

China has also argued that AI safety should not become a pretext for technological barriers.

The United States has no equivalent single government office responsible for AI arms control. National security policy is spread across the White House National Security Council, State Department, Pentagon and other agencies.

Both governments remain wary of measures that could constrain their own technological development.

Trump has warned that broad restraints could give China an advantage, while Beijing views many U.S. technology controls as efforts to preserve American dominance.

The competing priorities could make agreement on safeguards difficult even as the risks of autonomous military systems become more prominent in U.S.-China strategic discussions.

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