RAW researcher Lauren Gould was interviewed this week by Dutch investigative outlet Follow the Money on remote warfare, algorithmic targeting, and the civilian toll of the US-Israel air campaign against Iran.
Drawing on over a decade of research, including fieldwork in Hawija, Iraq, where a 2015 Dutch airstrike killed at least 85 civilians, Gould traces how Western armies have progressively outsourced warfare to technology through what she calls ‘remoting’: the shift away from ground troops towards unmanned aerial bombardments, drones, satellites, and AI targeting systems. The further armies operate from the battlefield, the more they rely on remote knowing and targeting, and the more devastating the consequences for civilians.
Central to her work is the concept of ‘compounding harm’: the idea that the impact of an attack extends far beyond the explosion itself. The impact of an attack ripples outward into lost income, displacement, torn communities, and what she describes as a form of psychological imprisonment, as surveillance technologies continue to shape and constrain civilian life long after the bombing stops.
Her core argument is as timely as it is uncomfortable: AI does not make warfare more precise; it accelerates it, scales it, and diffuses responsibility across machines, operators, and corporations. But Gould insists the conversation cannot stop at technology. We need, she argues, a much more fundamental conversation about the logic of this violence: what political objectives are we trying to achieve, and where does this end?
Bombardments like those on Iran are not tragic incidents, they are the result of weapons systems deliberately built to increase the speed and scale of warfare. That demands a political reckoning, not a technical one.
Read the full interview (in Dutch) here.
