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Probably worth keeping in mind that the drones cannot be coordinated out of line-of-sight. This isn't a really big deal if you have access to, say, Starlink, but short of that it's a huge problem. In the future, weapons that can effectively take care of Starlink can be expected to come online (if they aren't deployed already), so you'd need massive and very vulnerable backup communications network.
I think the bigger problem, though, is that your commander-in-chief is a massive huge immobile building that cannot be replaced. In a war between humans, killing a single person is generally understood to change little, but massive huge immobile buildings that cannot be replaced are pretty well understood not to be survivable.
Really the upshot is that if we permit a super-intelligent and evil AI to control a vertically-integrated supply chain that terminates in the military resources of a nation-state, it could in fact pose a serious treat to us. But this isn't really a unique problem, it's the same threat we face from other nation-states and insurgent groups.
I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, but
No! It only converges on the same threat if the AI commander is roughly as capable as a human!
Right now we’re around the Saddam Hussein level. AI is too expensive and incompetent to replace a real military leader. The competence barely matters; to paraphrase a philosopher, I have yet to meet one who could outsmart JDAM. But that first one is the real problem.
If AI gets cheap enough to replace trained losses, modern decapitation tactics fall apart. America can no longer bomb any Iranian who knows how to plan a missile strike. Ukrainians can no longer hollow out Russia’s entire officer corps. Competence becomes materiel.
I can’t decide if this favors any particular strategies other than decapitation. I do think it turns a lot of winnable fights unwinnable.
Ironically I think it will be easier to decapitate AIs, at least in the medium term. And likely a viable strategy, even if they aren't in charge of the army, simply as an extension of the age-old tactic of disrupting enemy communications.
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