In January 2026, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told the US military to “accelerate like hell” in the use of AI, robots, and autonomous systems.

Now, just over 100 days later, we’re on the ground in Morocco, where AI-powered “robotic forces” are working alongside human soldiers as part of African Lion, the US military’s largest exercise on the African continent.

“The Russia Ukraine Conflict has provided interesting insight into how the battlefield has changed,” 1st. Lt. Vincent Gaspari told us in a tent at Camp America in Tan-Tan, Morocco. “We now have very low-cost solutions that are precise and effective.”

Indeed, the modern battlefield has become much more lethal with drones, creating asymmetrical warfare where one side becomes substantially weaker than the other. Here at Africa Lion, we’re seeing autonomous ground vehicles that are weaponized. But with anything lethal, a human is in the loop.

As this technology advances further, what are the ethics of of autonomy on the battlefield?

This and more as we cover Africa Lion 2026:

Shane Smith traveled to Venezuela for a special episode of Shane Smith Has Questions, on the ground for the first meeting between U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez: the Trump administration’s first official visit since the regime change.

Reporting from Caracas, Shane gets rare access as U.S. officials engage Venezuela’s new leadership and begin shaping what comes next for the country and its vast oil reserves.

He also sits down with Venezuelan journalist María de los Ángeles Graterol and Wall Street Journal South America Bureau Chief, Juan Manuel Ferero, to unpack the power shift, the stakes for Washington, and what the future may hold for Venezuela.

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Shane and Channel 5/All Gas No Brakes’ Andrew Callaghan traveled to Denmark and Greenland covering the ongoing crisis over Greenland, which the U.S. is threatening to annex. A number of European countries are promising to defend Greenland, if necessary, under Article Five of the North Atlantic Treaty. Canada is weighing whether to send a small number of troops.

Watch the video to see what Shane and Andrew uncovered.

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Shane sits down in Denmark, immediately following today’s high-stakes US–Danish meetings, with former Danish foreign minister Per Stig Møller for an on-the-ground conversation about why Greenland has become one of the most sensitive geopolitical flashpoints right now. Coming off the press conference and escalating rhetoric between Washington and Copenhagen, Møller draws on his role negotiating a key defense treaty with the United States to explain what the agreements actually allow, and why the current moment has raised fresh alarms.

They break down the US narrative around security gaps, rare earth minerals, and competition with Russia and China, questioning whether those claims hold up under scrutiny. The conversation looks at sovereignty, NATO obligations, Arctic militarization, and what it means when long-standing allies begin treating territory and people as leverage rather than partners.

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