At Camp America in Tan-Tan, Morocco, Apaches, B-52s, and drones swarm the sky. Autonomous vehicles zoom through the sand. Barren hillsides erupt in flames from explosives. This is the site of African Lion 2026—the U.S. Africa Command's largest annual joint multinational military exercise.
Shane Smith and VICE News reported on this year’s conference, the first year that A.I. agents are running everything. Two years ago that would have been unthinkable. Now it’s doing everything, including running our wars.
From A.I.-assisted targeting systems and autonomous combat vehicles to suicide drones, robotics, quantum computing, and next-generation military communications, Shane embeds with U.S. AFRICOM and the young soldiers building the future of warfare in real time.
In this episode of Shane Smith Has Questions, Shane speaks with General Davin R.M. Anderson, Commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).
Shane Smith: Some of the weapons we saw today- autonomous cars with machine guns on top. The only cultural touchtone that a lot of people have on this stuff is The Terminator.
Gen. Anderson: Exactly. The fallacy is that you can stop the world, figure out the way ahead, and then restart the technology. Our adversaries aren’t waiting. This is something that we need to be working through as a society.
Shane: What are the biggest challenges facing the U.S. and or the military in Africa today?
Anderson: From Africa, the biggest threat we have now is the terrorist threat.
The terrorist threat has migrated from the Middle East to Africa. Isis leadership is African. Al Qaeda’s economic engine is in Africa. So these combine to make Africa of great interest to us.
While maybe not a direct threat emanating from all of these locations across Africa, they’re either supporting or funding those who want to do harm to the United States. Al Qaeda and Isis are both present and active. Both still have the will and intent to attack America.
Shane: Where are they getting the funding from?
Anderson: They’ve got several franchises. In the Sahel, AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) is associated with JNIM (Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin)- another terrorist threat. They generate a tremendous amount through illicit activities, whether that’s kidnapping, ransom, or smuggling.
Al-Shabaab is also affiliated with Al-Qaeda in Somalia, and they are by far the most lucrative terrorist franchise in the world, generating over $100M each year in various types of illicit activity, but also through taxation in the areas they hold.
Shane: When we were here four years ago, it seemed to me more like larger countries- Russia, China- bigger confrontations. Now warfare has evolved to be asymmetrical: drones, robotics, A.I. How did we get here and what will we see next year?
Anderson: What’s caught people by surprise is the exponential growth we’ve seen in the past few years. It’s a knee in the curve that looks vertical. So it’s not the technology specifically, it’s the speed at which it’s evolving. And that became more evident after Ukraine, when we saw how that technology rapidly changed warfare. That a large, conventional army was not necessarily all you needed when you faced a very combined, concerted asymmetric threat.
The combination of drones, artificial intelligence, of processing, and of electronic warfare has come together to change the battle space in a way that I’m not sure anyone totally understood. If you’ll indulge me…
Shane: Go ahead
Anderson: We’re at the maturation of the digital age. Everything is changing. Our finances, society, information. This means warfare is changing, too. The last time we saw this was in the 20th century when industrialism and mechanization changed everything, including warfare.
Look at what happened in the first outbreak of WWI. Everyone knew what airplanes, ships, submarines, machine guns, and radios were, but nobody knew how to put them together. The Germans understood a different type of warfare. Maneuver warfare allowed them to move at a speed that the French just couldn’t comprehend and adjust to. It’s what we now know as the Blitzkrieg.
This is what we’re seeing now. These elements are coming together into a different warfare. We don’t know quite how it’s going to fit, we don’t know how it’s going to be, but we do know if we just try to apply them to the old way of doing business- of strong point defense and building an imaginal line to hold the border- it’s probably not going to be sufficient.
Later, Shane spoke with 1st Lt. Vincent Gasparri of the Innovation Team Lead 173rd Airborne Brigade. Gasparri leads a new generation of military innovators who are developing drone systems inspired by lessons from Ukraine, Iran, and modern asymmetric warfare.
Of the Russia Ukraine conflict, Lt. Gasparri talked about how the spectrum of the battlefield has changed.
Gasparri: The Russia Ukraine Conflict has provided interesting insight into how the battlefield has changed. We now have very low-cost solutions that are precise and effective. A small drone can cause a national or strategic impact, and that is a paradigm shift.
Shane: Show me some of the stuff you’re excited about.
Gasparri: We have an innovative one-way attack. It’s a Nocturnal Nightmare FPV (first-person view). This brings up a very interesting problem: how do you safely and reliably arm a system? When there was necessity on the Ukrainian battlefield, their solutions were reasonably archaic…
Safety is a priority for us. So this is a commercial solution to arm FPV drones with army supplied energetics (C4 explosives). It’s exciting because it’s the first time we’re using this solution, and it’s worked fantastically.
The conversations explore:
A.I. on the battlefield
Autonomous weapons systems
Drone warfare and counter-drone tech
Robotics and future combat
Quantum computing and encryption
The ethics of A.I. warfare
Terror threats in Africa
How Ukraine changed military strategy
The future of the U.S. military
As wars become increasingly automated, Shane asks the question everyone is thinking: are we prepared for a future where A.I. helps run wars?
