Very interesting that the Chinese understanding is basically "LAWS are Terminators". The conclusion that "Terminators are bad" makes a lot of sense, given that understanding. I find it odd that they would import that definition to discussions with US policy-makers though (or people following the US/ICRC definition), as our definition is pretty obviously *very* broad. It also seems odd to me that the Chinese view assumes indiscriminateness but then argues that LAWS have to be regulated/prohibited; if they're indiscriminate, then they *already are* prohibited by IHL. Knowing these nuances of other states' positions is critical to moving forward though!
To the need for clarity and mitigating silly hype, I could not agree more (for a shameless plug, I actually had something published on this in spring this year: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43681-024-00448-z). It often seems to me that the biggest obstacle to sensible regulation is tech bros and activists who want to weigh in but haven't carefully considered either the technologies themselves or the ways these are/will be used by militaries (or both). Grounding our debates in careful consideration of real warfighting scenarios, real practiced doctrines of state militaries, and real capabilities/limitations of systems is the only way we're going to have a hope of finding sensible regulations that enough parties will sign onto for them to be meaningful.
Very interesting that the Chinese understanding is basically "LAWS are Terminators". The conclusion that "Terminators are bad" makes a lot of sense, given that understanding. I find it odd that they would import that definition to discussions with US policy-makers though (or people following the US/ICRC definition), as our definition is pretty obviously *very* broad. It also seems odd to me that the Chinese view assumes indiscriminateness but then argues that LAWS have to be regulated/prohibited; if they're indiscriminate, then they *already are* prohibited by IHL. Knowing these nuances of other states' positions is critical to moving forward though!
To the need for clarity and mitigating silly hype, I could not agree more (for a shameless plug, I actually had something published on this in spring this year: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43681-024-00448-z). It often seems to me that the biggest obstacle to sensible regulation is tech bros and activists who want to weigh in but haven't carefully considered either the technologies themselves or the ways these are/will be used by militaries (or both). Grounding our debates in careful consideration of real warfighting scenarios, real practiced doctrines of state militaries, and real capabilities/limitations of systems is the only way we're going to have a hope of finding sensible regulations that enough parties will sign onto for them to be meaningful.
Great comments Nathan, thanks!