Artificial Intelligence and National Security: Military Power, Digital Sovereignty, and Great-Power Competition

This study analyzes how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping national security, military power, and great-power competition in the twenty-first century. Rather than treating AI as an autonomous technological force that mechanically determines strategic outcomes, the article conceptualizes military AI as a conditional force multiplier whose effects depend on data quality, organizational adaptation, doctrinal integration, industrial capacity, and human-machine command arrangements. Methodologically, the study employs qualitative document analysis and thematic content analysis of academic literature, official strategy documents, international reports, and contemporary policy analyses. It draws illustrative examples from the United States, China, Russia, and the European Union to examine how AI is incorporated into military modernization, digital sovereignty strategies, cyber security, information operations, and legal-ethical governance debates. The findings suggest that AI may redistribute military effectiveness by increasing speed, scale, precision, and attritional capacity, but that these effects remain uneven and contingent. The article also argues that AI competition is producing a governance gap between technological acceleration and binding international regulation, especially in relation to autonomous weapon systems and meaningful human control.