Military AI Governance Increasingly Set by Contract, Not Law; Procurement as Policy Raises Accountability Gaps

Lawfare analysis finds rules governing military AI are increasingly derived from bilateral vendor agreements rather than statutes or regulations. The Anthropic-Pentagon breakdown illustrates the fragility: when contract negotiations fail, no statutory framework governs what happens next. The DOD requested $13.4 billion for autonomous weapons systems in FY2026, but the regulatory architecture for their deployment remains vendor-dependent.