Western militaries are still arguing over what “autonomy” means while Russia and China are already building machines that don’t need GPS, data links, or even instructions.And unless the United States rewrites its understanding of autonomy, it will keep fielding systems that look modern on paper but collapse the moment the battlefield cuts the cord. The United States and its allies should abandon legacy concepts of “autonomy” and rapidly transition toward true AI autonomy — systems capable of independently perceiving, deciding, and acting in contested environments where GPS, external data, and human supervision cannot be relied on. Without this shift, WesternThe post Chasing True AI Autonomy: From Legacy Mindsets to Battlefield Dominance appeared first on War on the Rocks.