Chiefs

The U.S. military’s top officer on Wednesday talked about how AI is changing the character of warfare and offered two examples to illustrate his points. His comments included new insights into how two U.S. Army AH-64 Apache crew members were rescued after being shot down by an Iranian drone near the coast of Oman in June. The recovery effort involved America’s first known use of an uncrewed surface vessel (USV) executing a personnel recovery action as part of a military search and rescue operation.

“Information moves so fast that leader decision times have compressed from weeks down to days down to seconds,” explained Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during his keynote speech at the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Conference that TWZ is attending. “In the future fight, advantage will go to the side who can see first, who can understand first, decide first, and act first, and along the way, be a learning organization, and no factor is accelerating change as fast as artificial intelligence and advancing cyber capabilities.”

“AI is here now, and it’s already changing the way militaries see, sense, decide, and act across the joint force,” the chairman proclaimed.

The first example Caine used to highlight these changes took place on June 8. After the Apache went down, “U.S. CENTCOM launched a rapid, responsive joint search and rescue effort to recover the crew. That response drew on the totality of the joint force, and ultimately was required to use enabled unmanned vessels to participate in the rescue of downed U.S. service members for the first time ever.”

As we noted in our previous coverage, CENTCOM deployed “a U.S. Navy Corsair unmanned surface vessel,” the command’s spokesman told us at the time.

The ability to pull off that rescue mission “did not appear overnight,” Caine pointed out. “It came from the men and women of Task Force 59, CENTCOM’s forward-leaning unmanned joint maritime unit who spent the last several years testing, integrating, and operationalizing unmanned systems and AI in one of the most demanding and kinetic environments on Earth right now.”

“What helped make this possible was not a bunch of general officers and flag officers,” Caine continued. “What made this possible was a bunch of entrepreneurial sailors and members of the joint force on watch floors, at piers, managing networks of unmanned systems across thousands of miles of water, and using AI to turn massive amounts of data into a crisp, clear, perfect maritime picture that allowed us to go grab those two soldiers in the water.”

The second example Caine shared about the use of AI “points in the other direction, not how quickly we are using these tools, but how quickly these tools are changing the threat.”

In Ukraine, “we see first-person view drones operating in heavily contested EMI [electromagnetic interference] environments. Some now using AI-enabled computer vision to continue to drive towards targets, even when there’s no GPS or the links are cut. That gives small units affordable precision and shows how quickly software and autonomy are changing what is possible at the tactical edge, and the results are stark.”

The use of AI to enable lower-end drone warfare is a topic TWZ has been among the first to point out.

“In certain locations on the front line of troops right now, the life expectancy of a new Russian recruit arriving on the front lines is as little as 20 to 30 minutes,” Caine added. “Think about that. This is what happens when low-cost precision is fielded fast, adapted quickly, and scaled across the battlefield.”

“The price of lethal exchange is decreasing day over day,” the chairman noted. “One wonders what the future of close air support looks like, but I am comforted by the fact that each and every one of you are in this room thinking about that. Taken together, these examples from the Straits of Hormuz to the front lines in Ukraine show how quickly technology is changing the character of war, and this means our joint force needs to do two things at one time.”

“[W]e need to prepare the joint force to win in this kind of conflict,” the general stated. “We have to assume from now on that our formations will be hunted by autonomous systems, jammed across the spectrum, and tracked in real time, and we have to transition the joint force to be prepared to fight and win our future war by generating and delivering lethality at scale with an agile, optimized, high-low mix of combat capabilities to give the young members of the 2.8-million member all volunteer joint force the tools that they need before they need them.”

Contact the author: howard@twz.com 

The United States takes its turn chairing the G20 finance track this week under distinctly awkward conditions.

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US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh are hosting counterparts in the North Carolina mountains, following a deputies meeting held over the weekend, with the formal agenda covering economic growth, global imbalances, sovereign debt restructuring, banking regulation and energy security.

Asheville was chosen deliberately.

The city was devastated by Hurricane Helene in September 2024, a storm that killed more than 250 people and caused close to $80 billion (€69bn) in damage from Florida to the Carolinas, and Bessent has cited its rebuilding as a fitting backdrop for talks about economic growth.

“We want the rest of the world to come along with our growth agenda, whether it’s deregulation, the energy independence […]” he said, adding that “the world has this mountain of debt, and we do have to grow our way out of it,” confirming public debt will feature prominently in the discussions.

The setting may prove easier than the substance.

Trade friction between the US and Canada escalated after negotiations broke down, hostilities with Iran have resumed through economic rather than military means, and Warsh arrives days after a hawkish first Jackson Hole address that sharply raised the odds of a US rate rise this month.

Both meetings serve as groundwork for the leaders’ summit at Trump National Doral in Miami on 14 and 15 December, and come weeks before Xi Jinping is expected in Washington on 24 September.

Bessent’s push on Iran

The US Treasury Secretary intends to use bilateral meetings to build support for squeezing Tehran, and stated that Washington will sanction another bank this week, though he declined to name it.

“This is going to be financial violence if we have to,” Bessent told AP.

“We are showing people that we know who you are, you know who you are, and this has got to stop,” he added.

The campaign’s opening move came on Friday, when the US Treasury proposed a rule that would cut the Emirati branches of Banque Misr, Egypt’s second-largest lender, off from the American financial system.

By stopping short of full sanctions, the US administration appeared to signal reluctance to punish major trading partners that still deal with Iran, notably China and India.

On Beijing specifically, Bessent said “all options are on the table” over its continued oil purchases, while dismissing suggestions of hesitancy as “a completely false narrative that the media picked up on.”

The meetings are also being held under unusual media restrictions, after the US Treasury barred certain reporters from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg from covering them.

The New York Times called the move “not just another disturbing effort by the administration to undermine independent journalism, but a blatant attempt to evade public scrutiny.”

The department has not explained its decision, though Bessent told the AP that “it has nothing to do with point of view.”

Who speaks for Europe at the G20

The EU is represented by Ireland’s Tánaiste and Finance Minister Simon Harris, who holds the role by virtue of Ireland’s EU presidency since 1 July, alongside ECB President Christine Lagarde and Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis.

Harris said he was looking forward to “the first Ministerial meeting of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors since Ireland assumed the Presidency of the EU,” describing the forum as a place where the largest economies “can exchange views and work towards international economic and financial stability.”

The Irish minister’s stated priority reflects the conflict shaping much of the agenda at this G20 meeting.

Among the EU’s concerns, Harris listed “energy security and ensuring we have secure and resilient energy supplies at a time of severe volatility caused by the conflict in the Middle East.”

He will also hold bilateral meetings with counterparts from G20 member states as Ireland has also been invited as a guest for the December leaders’ summit in Miami.

Additional sources • AP

Islamabad, Pakistan — Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir spent Monday moving through the power corridors of Tehran: the presidency, parliament, the Supreme National Security Council, and the foreign and interior ministries.

He met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, as well as Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is Tehran’s chief negotiator in talks with the United States to end their now six-month-long war.

But amid a deadlock in those peace negotiations, many analysts say that Munir’s true test as mediator will lie in his ability to use his position as one of the region’s most powerful military leaders to convince his Iranian counterparts in olive uniforms to agree to a return to talks with Washington.

Days before Munir’s visit, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told a gathering of doctors in Tehran that it was time to end the war while Iran held the advantage, a message aimed as much at Tehran’s own security establishment as at Washington.

“It is better that we bring the war to an end now as we are in a position of power and dignity,” he said, adding that “the whole world acknowledges our victory”.

Hours later, on August 21, the chief of the general staff of Iran’s armed forces, Major-General Ali Abdollahi, promised “revolutionary, crushing, regret-inducing and devastating” responses to any American miscalculation.

It was a sharp illustration of the gap between Iran’s president and the men now running its military — one that Munir will need to also navigate, analysts say.

And that’s why Munir’s most significant meeting on Monday might have been with General Mohsen Rezaei, a representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and the newly appointed secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. Rezaei is essentially the bridge between the military and Khamenei.

State of the war

Munir’s visit to Tehran came on a day when the region and the world were bracing for US President Donald Trump’s threatened “economic D-Day” sanctions against Iran, accompanied by a threatened punishment for all countries that continue to trade with Tehran.

Later in the day, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled “Operation Economic Outcast“, a sweeping sanctions campaign targeting Iran’s digital assets, gold, aviation, technology and shipping networks.

But while warning other countries to sever trade ties with Iran, he held back from actually announcing any penalties for those nations, acknowledging that such a step would “blow up the global financial system”.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking the same day, kept the option of renewed strikes open.

“If we need to use kinetic strikes, we’ll use them. If Iran is foolish enough to overplay their hand or mess with the American military, we’ll do what we need to do,” he said.

It’s unclear whether Munir’s visit helped stave off broader US action against Iran and its trading partners.

But the timing was significant, analysts point out. Munir travelled to Tehran days after taking a phone call from United States President Donald Trump, who reportedly asked Islamabad to use its influence to bring Iran back to the table.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said the one-day visit had produced “comprehensive discussions” on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the war.

Iranian officials, the ISPR added, “appreciated Pakistan’s constructive role and sincere efforts”.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who travelled with Munir, went further, calling the talks “very positive and productive” and saying “significant progress was made”.

A reshuffled Iranian military

This was his fourth visit to Tehran this year, but his first since Iran’s military hierarchy changed earlier this month.

On August 10, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei installed Abdollahi as chief of the general staff and moved Rezaei into the Supreme National Security Council. Ahmad Vahidi, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has held his post since March, when his predecessor was killed in the war’s opening strikes.

It is these military men that analysts say are now shaping Iran’s war moves, potentially giving a fellow man in uniform an edge over traditional diplomats in convincing Tehran to get back to talks.

“It is increasingly the IRGC and the wider security establishment driving decisions on war and peace during this crisis,” Ahmed Saeed, a former vice admiral in Pakistan’s navy and a defence analyst, told Al Jazeera.

Naqvi, the interior minister, has travelled to Tehran eight times since April without those visits producing a substantial breakthrough.

But unlike him, Munir is not a politician. He’s a general who appears to enjoy the trust of both the Iranian leadership and, crucially, Trump — who has described the Pakistani army chief as his “favourite field marshal”.

“The call [to Munir a few days ago] was initiated by Trump himself, requesting Pakistani leadership use its influence to bring Iran back to the table,” Saeed said.

Warm words, no movement

What Iranian officials actually told Munir, in accounts carried by Iranian state media, differed little from what they have been telling their own broadcasters all week.

“We distrust America, and it must change its behaviour,” Rezaei told Munir, according to IRNA.

Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker, was blunter.

“We are pursuing the implementation of the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding, and it is America that must adhere to its commitments based on the Memorandum of Understanding,” he told Munir, according to IRNA.

Pezeshkian, meanwhile, pressed Munir to tell Washington to “correct its tone and approach”, warning that “relying on force and bullying will only complicate the process”, according to Tasnim, another Iranian outlet.

Two tracks, one strait

Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Albusaidi is also expected in Tehran today for a separate round of talks focused specifically on the Strait of Hormuz, a track that has run alongside Pakistan’s mediation for months.

Oman’s involvement is not new. Albusaidi has held recurring talks with Tehran on the strait’s navigation rules.

Ejaz Haider, a Lahore-based defence analyst, said the Omani and Pakistani diplomatic tracks complement each other.

“Oman and Islamabad channels complement, because clause 5 of the Islamabad MoU stresses a bilateral understanding on the strait [between Oman and Iran],” he told Al Jazeera. The Strait of Hormuz passes through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman.

“This [a deal between Iran and Oman to jointly manage the strait] is not in the interest of the US, which is why Trump has threatened to bomb Oman,” Haider said, referring to remarks Trump made on August 17, when he told Fox News he would bomb Oman if it “gets in the way” of reopening the strait, the second time he had threatened the US ally over Hormuz.

Where Islamabad’s advantage as a mediator lay was in its “direct access to Vahidi, Abdollahi and Rezaei, the actual architects of Iran’s decision-making”, Saeed, the former naval official, said.

An Iranian official close to the negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Albusaidi would be in Tehran “primarily to hear what Iran has decided and what it has discussed with its Pakistani mediator”.

Who holds the leverage?

Andreas Krieg, an associate professor of defence studies at King’s College London, said the differences that had emerged between the Iranian military and civilian leaderships demonstrate a gulf between their understanding of where the war stood.

Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf, Krieg said, were “essentially warning that Iran cannot live indefinitely in this condition”, while “parts of the IRGC believe the opposite and think time is working against Washington”.

But ultimately, he said, “Mohsen Rezaei, Ahmad Vahidi and the IRGC are central to whether any political understanding [to end the war] can be implemented”, referring to Iran’s top military leadership.

“[Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas] Araghchi can negotiate something, and Qatar can broker it, but none of that matters if the security apparatus does not accept the operational consequences.”

For now, Munir appears to be the candidate mediators believe has the best shot at getting Iranian generals from their war room to the board room.