Peace and Stability and AI Defence Tech

With $3 billion in venture capital flowing into defence startups in 2024, which represents a 33 per cent year-over-year surge, and global military spending reaching an all-time high of $2.443 trillion, the world is witnessing the emergence of a new investment category. The emerging defence technology landscape has evolved in both scope and scale. In 2025, there are about 1,390 companies in the military tech sector globally, with 429 funded companies having collectively raised $14.2 billion in venture capital and private equity funding. The only thing that is faster than defence innovation is the funding velocity.

The defence innovation ecosystem of four countries is curious. The United States has about 613 defence tech startups. This accounts for over fifty per cent of all global companies in this sector. India follows with about 136 companies. The United Kingdom has around 97 companies, and Israel hosts 66. The market segments driving growth include cybersecurity, military AI, and the defence drone market. The defence cybersecurity market has grown from $16.45 billion in 2023 to $19.14 billion in 2024. This represents a compound annual growth rate of 16.1 per cent, driven largely by the increasing sophistication of cyber threats.

Military AI is projected to expand from $13.24 billion in 2024 to $61.09 billion by 2034. Its applications are extensive: autonomous vehicle navigation, threat detection, and mission planning optimisation. The defence drone market, valued at $11.2 billion in 2025, is projected to reach $21.3 billion by 2034. In the future, commercial AI may play an increasingly essential role in criminal acts. This means that many new criminal acts or omissions punishable in law would probably not have occurred but for the support of AI. In some instances, AI may be a contributing factor, but not an investigative, enforcing, or mitigating factor.

Regarding the intention threshold, if we assume that an artificial agent can perform the “actus reus” in a wide variety of AI crimes where intention at least partly constitutes the “mens rea”, greater AI autonomy can only increase the possibility of the criminal acts or omissions being decoupled from the mental state. In an era of heightened geopolitical tensions and with the dramatic rise of AI advancements that integrates facial recognition, social media edges and nodes, GPS, and data lakes, digital defence startups are attracting billions in funding as they reshape national security.

Unlike the legacy primes, these startups are closing the perilous technology gaps that are critical to national security. In the first half of 2025, venture funding for U.S.-based defence tech startups totalled about US$3.8 billion. The neoprimes are faster, leaner, and software-first. In a post-9/11 world, defence is about asymmetric combat, and relatively low-tech fighters. The attack surface is in the air; the Southern Caribbean Sea, and in the cyber and space domains.

The neoprimes are utilising AI and autonomy to enhance several technologies critical to national security, including hypersonics, energy resilience, space technology, and integrated cyber and sensing capabilities. Defence tech-startups are developing dual-use technologies that have both commercial applications, and applications to the defence industrial base. This new frontier is propelled by individuals with battlefield awareness and the builder’s drive for origination. Defence tech is not about war. It is about deterrence, and wanting those involved in modern-day slavery, drug trafficking, and other nefarious activities to think before they threaten the peace and stability of small island developing states in the Caribbean Basin.

Directed energy systems utilise lasers, high-powered microwaves, and particle beam energy to produce precision disruptions that can damage or destroy the assets of malicious actors.  Integrated sensing and cyber capabilities enable the state to utilise wideband sensors to operate at the intersection of radar, cyberspace, communication, and electronic conflict. In Europe, consideration is being given to a Drone Wall that includes sensors and weapons to detect, track and neutralise intruding unmanned aircraft in an effort to protect Europe’s eastern flank.

AI can also be an auxiliary in the trafficking, selling, buying, and possessing of banned drugs. Business-to-business trafficking of drugs using AI is a threat due to criminals using drones, which rely on AI planning and autonomous navigation technologies, as tools for augmenting the success rates of smuggling. The Europol Report titled, “European Union Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment” (2017), states that drones present a horizontal threat in the form of drug smuggling. The report states that serious and organised crime in the EU encompasses a wide range of criminal activities, with increasing levels of complexity and scale.

Bad actors quickly integrate new technologies into their modus operandi, or build brand-new business models using emerging technologies. The use of technology has an impact on criminal activities across the spectrum of serious and organised crime. This includes online trade and widespread availability of encrypted communication channels.