Artificial intelligence and modern weapons give their owners what George Yeo calls “the seeming power of God.” In this keynote at Panmure House’s New Enlightenment Conference, Singapore’s former foreign minister examines the defining military campaigns of recent years and asks why such power so often falls short of its aims.
Force meets its limits
Yeo opens with Ukraine and the Gulf, where he sees military force running into hard limits. He then turns to a newer pattern: precision campaigns, enabled by AI and advanced intelligence, that target the leadership of an adversary. He traces this approach through Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, and through the American operation in Venezuela.
The strike designed to be repeated
One case draws his closest attention. A strike on Iran, Yeo argues, was built as a model for repeated use. Iran adapted by spreading command across its system, so that removing leaders no longer paralysed it. The technique lost force when the target learned from it.
Putin and Ukraine
Yeo also revisits Vladimir Putin’s remarks in the Kremlin days into the Ukraine war, and the case Putin made about NATO. The episode shows how leaders justify the use of force, and how far outcomes can drift from their intentions.
A warning for the AI age
Yeo closes with a caution about hubris. A technology that seems to grant godlike power invites leaders to overreach, and civilisation rests on far more than the application of force.
Why it matters for Asia
Asian militaries are investing heavily in AI-enabled surveillance, drones, and precision strike. Yeo’s examples suggest those systems will shape the conduct of conflict without settling its outcome. For a region with live disputes in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, and the Korean Peninsula, his warning about the confidence such tools create carries direct weight.
Can any technology deliver what force alone has never secured? Watch the full keynote and judge for yourself.
Further reading
- Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
Source: George Yeo keynote, New Enlightenment Conference, Panmure House, Edinburgh.
