Complexity and the Global Security Governance of Autonomous Weapon Systems: Regulatory Deadlock and Practices of Relational Transcendence

One of the most prominent contemporary issues in the arms control domain is the regulation of Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS). Today, there exist global governance procedures for AWS due to intense legal and ethical concerns, especially about those equipped with Artificial Intelligence capabilities, herein referred to as intelligent AWS (IAWS). However, there is currently no regulatory regime exclusively dedicated to the development and use of AWS beyond established International Humanitarian Law principles. By using Complexity Theory, this article argues that the absence of a regulatory regime for AWS is constrained by three structural parameters. These reflect entrenched perceptions of certain state actors, including powerful ones, on intelligent weapon autonomy, national security, and contemporary international politics. For this reason, the article additionally suggests that for the purpose of transcending regulatory deadlocks, such as the one concerning AWS, state, and non‐state actors should adopt complexity‐minded communication practices like issue reframing, incremental opinion‐shifting, and peace‐linking. These take into account and exploit existing interconnections between concepts (international security and global stability), actors (policymakers, activists, leaders, etc.), and social phenomena (arms proliferation and war). In this way, agents will be able to indirectly induce the necessary cognitive shifts for consensus to emerge.