Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Warfare as Emerging Threats to National Security in the Digital Age

Abstract

Artificial intelligence has emerged as one of the most radical technologies in modern national security, defence, and governance of digital technology. In the digital world, cyberspace is no longer a medium of communication only; it is now a strategic space wherein states, non-state actors, criminal groups, and proxy networks are able to operate hostile movements without any physical borders being crossed. The main problem in this area is that AI-enabled cyber wars accelerate the speed, scope, anonymity, agency, self-sufficiency, and psychological effect of cyber operations, and the prevailing legal frameworks are unsure of how to deal with attribution, accountability, sovereignty, use of force, proportionality, due diligence, and state responsibility. This focused study specifically analyses how AI is changing cyber warfare and how AI is emerging as a new threat to national security through automated cyberattacks, AI-powered malware, adversarial machine learning, deepfakes, disinformation, ransomware, supply chain attacks, and how engineers are using AI to launch attacks against critical infrastructure. The methodology of this research is qualitative doctrinal legal research, based on international legal instruments, institutional reports, policy documents, and scholarly legal literature. The approach followed is analytical and comparative because the article investigates the principles of international law, cyber law, AI governance structures, and the principles of responsibility of the states. The hypothetical conclusion is that, based on the current international law, computer warfare is subject to this law, although it does not provide sufficient clarity in its operations to effectively apply this law to the current computer warfare. The article summarises that it should be stronger internationally, have more recognisable legal thresholds, be monitored by a human, presented by cyber attribution standards, passionate about critical infrastructure, and have AI-specific national security rules. This work adds to the legal literature by linking artificial intelligence, cyber warfare, and national security in a modern international law paradigm.