December 2025
Written by Michael T. Clare
Members of the United Nations General Assembly’s First Committee voted overwhelmingly to approve two resolutions calling for increased international oversight of the risks posed by military uses of AI, with Russia and the United States in notable opposition.
The two resolutions adopted on November 6 constitute a pioneering effort by UN Member States to better understand the implications of the use of AI for military purposes, particularly in the nuclear field.
One of the first resolutions introduced in 2024, on “Artificial Intelligence in the Military Sector and its Implications for International Peace and Security,” addresses the overall picture of the weaponization of AI and was approved by a vote of 166 to 5, with five abstentions. The other, on “Potential Risks of the Integration of Artificial Intelligence into Nuclear Weapons Command, Control, and Communication Systems,” focuses on specific aspects of the issue. It was approved by 115 votes to 8, with 44 abstentions.
The measure has been submitted to the General Assembly and is almost certain to be approved by the end of the year.
The adoption of these proposals by the General Assembly’s First Committee on Security and Disarmament Affairs reflects growing international concern about military uses of AI. (look activityNovember 2025) Many experts have warned that without effective safeguards, AI-enabled systems could circumvent or eliminate human control over the use of force, causing significant death and destruction and possibly even the use of nuclear weapons. (look activityJune 2024. ) This, in turn, led to calls for the imposition of international regulations on the use of AI in combat systems.
“We cannot leave the fate of humanity to algorithms,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said at a September 24 meeting of the UN Security Council, which focuses on AI and international security. Guterres added: “Human beings must always retain authority over decisions that concern life and death.”
The two resolutions address these concerns and call on member states to work together to identify the risks posed by military uses of AI and to devise safeguards to avoid those risks.
Resolution A/80/46 calls on countries to “pursue national, regional, subregional and global efforts to address the opportunities and challenges, including humanitarian, legal, security, technical and ethical aspects, associated with the application of artificial intelligence in the military field”. It also authorizes the Secretary-General to convene a three-day meeting of Member States in 2026 to exchange views on this topic and consider next steps to address the risks involved. The United Nations Secretariat for Disarmament Affairs is responsible for preparing an outline of these deliberations for consideration by the next General Assembly in autumn 2026.
The United States voted in favor of a similar resolution in 2024, but this time it voted “no” along with Burundi, Israel, North Korea and Russia. In explaining their vote, the U.S. delegation argued that the resolution “risks starting down an undesirable and unhelpful path to creating a global governance system aimed at introducing centralized control over critical technologies.”
The outlook is consistent with President Donald Trump’s call for the United States to win what he calls the “race” to achieve “global dominance in artificial intelligence.” It also reflects claims by commercial technology industry leaders that international regulation of AI, even moderate, poses a threat to the unrestricted development of advanced AI models.
Consistent with this outlook, the United States also voted “no” to a second resolution, A/80/56, on the potential dangers arising from the integration of AI into nuclear command, control and communications (NC3) systems.
This action represents the General Assembly’s first attempt to address these risks. Many experts, including former military officials, have warned that unrestricted integration of AI into NC3 could result in “contamination” of nuclear decision-making systems with false or corrupted data, leading to hasty or erroneous nuclear launch decisions. (look activitySeptember 2025).
This resolution seeks to reduce this risk by encouraging Member States to jointly investigate the unique risks posed by the integration of AI into NC3 systems. It also calls on nuclear-weapon states to take immediate steps to ensure that humans, rather than machines, are ultimately in control of the use of nuclear weapons.
