Policy and National Security Research

Burak Oktenli is an independent researcher and analyst working at the intersection of artificial intelligence governance, national security, and critical infrastructure resilience. His public-source research examines how authority, accountability, and human oversight should be structured for autonomous and AI-enabled systems in safety-critical settings. This page collects his published commentary, externally cited work, and governance research relevant to policymakers, researchers, and public-sector institutions.

Burak Oktenli presenting on multi-domain missile defense

Researcher Profile

Burak Oktenli is a policy-oriented researcher focused on the governance of autonomous and AI-enabled systems in defense, critical infrastructure, and other safety-critical domains. His work examines a recurring question across these settings: when an automated system acts faster than a person can intervene, under whose authority did it act, and who is accountable for the result. He develops public-source analysis and technical governance frameworks that treat authority, accountability, and auditability as design requirements rather than afterthoughts. His research includes seven governance architectures addressing sensor trust, human-machine authority, escalation risk, and recovery, several of which are formally specified and machine-verified. He has published commentary with the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and other defense outlets, and his work has been cited in the United States Federal Register and in academic research. He contributes to standards discussion as a stakeholder participant in a NIST AI Risk Management Framework community of interest. He holds an MBA and is completing a Master of Professional Studies in Applied Intelligence at Georgetown University. He works independently and is not affiliated with, nor does he represent, any government agency or intergovernmental body.

Burak Oktenli appearing live from Washington on France 24 English, identified on screen as Independent Researcher on AI Governance and Autonomous Systems, alongside the studio anchor in Paris
Live interview on France 24 English, August 2026, on autonomous weapons and where the decision to act is actually made. Broadcast image © France 24, reproduced as a record of the appearance.

Policy Focus Areas

AI governance and accountability

Examines how decision authority for AI systems should be bounded, assigned, and made reviewable, so responsibility stays clear as autonomy increases.

Critical infrastructure resilience

Studies how safety-critical and operational-technology environments maintain control and continuity under cyber-physical stress and automated failure.

Autonomous systems oversight

Analyzes the human-oversight requirements for systems that can act below human reaction time, including how and when control passes between human and machine.

Operational technology and cyber-physical risk

Focuses on the security and governance of industrial control and OT environments where digital decisions carry physical consequences.

Strategic stability and escalation risk

Considers how machine-speed decision support and autonomy affect crisis stability, escalation dynamics, and the timing of human deliberation.

Public-source national security analysis

Produces analysis built entirely from open and credible sources, with stated assumptions and confidence levels, intended to inform rather than advocate.

Selected Publications and Policy-Relevant Work

Peer-Reviewed ArticleJuly 21, 2026

SATA: Sensor Attestation and Trust Anchoring: A Formally Specified, Simulation-Evaluated Continuous-Trust Protocol for Autonomous-Systems Sensor Edges

Journal of Hardware and Systems Security (Springer Nature) · Vol. 10, Art. 17 · Sole author
Op-EdOctober 6, 2026

America is winning the AI buildout. One blind spot could cost us the race

Washington Examiner
Op-EdOctober 6, 2026

When a Chatbot Becomes an Export

The Regulatory Review
Op-EdOctober 5, 2026

AI Can Shop, It Should Not Set Its Own Budget

Eurasia Review
AnalysisOctober 5, 2026

The Algorithm Is Part of the Telescope: Publish Its Blind Spots

Eurasia Review
Op-EdOctober 5, 2026

Trump wants 1,000 space launches a year. What happens when one link breaks?

Washington Examiner
Op-EdOctober 2026

AI doesn’t need to hack the Pentagon to threaten its people

Washington Examiner
Op-EdOctober 1, 2026

Police cameras aren’t just surveilling the road. Nobody can prove who’s watching

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 29, 2026

AI acts in seconds. Trump’s agenda has an 84-day blind spot

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 28, 2026

The network is the weapon: The missing link in the military’s AI revolution

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 28, 2026

Resilience Never Activated, Deters No One

Global Security Review · National Institute for Deterrence Studies
AnalysisSeptember 26, 2026

AI Can Move the World: First, Give It a Place to Stand

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 26, 2026

What If the ‘A’ in AI Stood for Alien? The Real Mystery Is That We Built It

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 25, 2026

The world is ticking on an AI clock. The UN is still set to 1945

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 25, 2026

When AI Safety Tests Leave the Lab, Someone Else Inherits the Risk

Eurasia Review
AnalysisSeptember 25, 2026

A Dark Ship Is a Clue, Not a Conviction

Eurasia Review
AnalysisSeptember 25, 2026

When Autonomous Systems Recover, the World Has Moved On

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 24, 2026

Public sector AI needs a permission recovery plan

GovInsider
Op-EdSeptember 24, 2026

The sun can mimic an attack. Military AI might start a war over it

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 24, 2026

The Nuclear AI Red Line: Prediction Is Not Permission

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 24, 2026

Before We Listen for Aliens, We Need to Know What Our Instruments Can Hear

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 24, 2026

AI Does Not Need the Keys If It Can Influence the Person Who Has Them

Eurasia Review
AnalysisSeptember 23, 2026

Can a Laser Write Memory Directly Into Silicon?

Techstrong Semi
Op-EdSeptember 23, 2026

Don’t give Trump an ‘AI force’ until it can stop a rogue agent

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 23, 2026

NATO’s AI Networks Must Be Able to Hear ‘No’

Eurasia Review
AnalysisSeptember 23, 2026

Europe’s Undersea Sensor Race Has a Hidden Cost: Resolving the Alerts

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 23, 2026

AI Cannot Restore a World We Burned

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 22, 2026

AI Incidents Are Not Lessons Until Someone Owns the Fix

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 22, 2026

If humanity can’t survive an AI blackout, we’ve already lost

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 22, 2026

Spacecraft protection and resilience - a convergent approach

ROOM Space Journal
AnalysisSeptember 22, 2026

The Age of Autoimmune War

Eurasia Review
AnalysisSeptember 22, 2026

The Search for Alien Technology Has a Measurement Problem

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 21, 2026

Your Screen Just Went Dark. That Doesn’t Mean the Election Was Stolen

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 21, 2026

America’s Next Defense Advantage

RealClearDefense
Op-EdSeptember 21, 2026

An AI Cyber Defender Can Stop the Attack and Still Lose the Mission

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 20, 2026

AI Didn’t Almost Trigger a War With China. Washington’s Blind Faith in It Did

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 19, 2026

An AI Warning Is Not Permission to Act

Eurasia Review
AnalysisSeptember 19, 2026

When Safe Mode Is Not Enough for Autonomous Spacecraft

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 18, 2026

America Just Admitted It Has Space Weapons. Now, One Miscalculated Orbit Could Start World War III

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 18, 2026

The Race Beyond GPS Needs a Rule for When Machines Stop Trusting Time

Eurasia Review
AnalysisSeptember 18, 2026

The First Alien Detection Will Probably Be a False Alarm

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 18, 2026

The Next Drone-Swarm Risk Begins When the Network Comes Back

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 17, 2026

The World Wants AI Guardrails. Companies Still Need a Map of Machine Power

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 17, 2026

The AI Slowdown Fight Is Missing What Happens After Training

Eurasia Review
AnalysisSeptember 17, 2026

The Satellites We Launch Today Will Outlive the Trust We Give Them

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 16, 2026

America Is Ready to Fight a Cyber War. It Isn’t Ready to Survive One

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 16, 2026

The Axis Is Growing More Connected. It Still Has an Information Problem

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 16, 2026

Trump Says AI Needs No New Guardrails. Then Who Gets to Turn It Back On?

Washington Examiner
AnalysisSeptember 16, 2026

The Hardest Part of Sending a Message Across Time Is Not the Signal

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 16, 2026

Automated Trading Controls Do Not Fail Loudly. They Clear.

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 15, 2026

The World Is Learning How to Stop AI. It Still Needs Rules for Restarting It

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 15, 2026

Trump’s Blunt Warning Gets It Right: If America Slows Down AI, China Wins for Free

Washington Examiner
CommentarySeptember 15, 2026

Water Utilities Can Be Running and Still Not Be Recovered

Route Fifty
AnalysisSeptember 15, 2026

The Trigger Is Now Curious: Physics Should Calibrate Its Taste

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 15, 2026

AI Safety Needs Stop Rules, Not a General Slowdown

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 15, 2026

NATO Can Connect Its AI Weapons. It Still Cannot Prove Human Control

Eurasia Review
AnalysisSeptember 14, 2026

A Collision Probability Is Not Permission to Maneuver

The Space Review
Op-EdSeptember 14, 2026

America Is Repeating the Blindness of 9/11, This Time With AI

Washington Examiner
AnalysisSeptember 12, 2026

The Most Dangerous AI Error Is a Reproducible One

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 12, 2026

The Global Fusion Race Is Becoming a Contest Over Control Standards

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 11, 2026

NATO’s Baltic Flank Needs an Algorithmic Escalation Brake

Eurasia Review
AnalysisSeptember 11, 2026

The Next Step in UAP Disclosure Is Better Measurement

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 10, 2026

SpaceX Satellites Dodge Collisions 1,100 Times a Day. Who’s Actually Driving?

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 10, 2026

Trump Is Right About Quantum. Now the Pentagon Has to Prove It Works

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 10, 2026

The Autonomous Weapons Agreement Will Be Decided in Export Markets

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 10, 2026

When Automated Decisions Outlive the Evidence Behind Them

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 10, 2026

The Next Front in the AI Race Is Institutional Speed

Eurasia Review
AnalysisSeptember 9, 2026

A Four-Hour Fault, a Two-Day Crisis: Britain Needs a New Measure of Air Traffic Resilience

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 9, 2026

America’s New National Security Science & Technology Strategy

RealClearDefense
Op-EdSeptember 9, 2026

China Built an AI Empire for the Global South. Trump Just Made a Better Offer

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 9, 2026

When the AI Safety Layer Makes the System Less Safe

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 9, 2026

Allied Defense Policy Needs a Common Standard for Military Warnings

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 9, 2026

The Global Defense Technology Race Needs a Physics Filter

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 8, 2026

Faster AI Is Not Always Better Astronomy

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 8, 2026

Trump Fought Unelected Bureaucrats. Now They’re Being Coded Into Immortality

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 7, 2026

The Geopolitics of Machine Authority: Who Makes the Rules for Autonomous Power?

Geopolitical Monitor
Op-EdSeptember 5, 2026

The Pentagon’s Freezer Mystery Holds a Warning About Military AI

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 4, 2026

When the Sky Goes Quiet, Who Governs the Machines?

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 4, 2026

AI Agents Serve Many Masters. Their Loyalties Should Not Be Secret

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 4, 2026

Financial AI Should Not Have One Big Permission Called ‘Trade’

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 3, 2026

Autonomous Weapons Treaties Should Verify Permission, Not Intelligence

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 3, 2026

The AI Scientist Has a Metrology Problem

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 3, 2026

Trump Promised to Drain the Swamp. AI Is Making It Unfireable

Washington Examiner
Op-EdSeptember 3, 2026

The Pentagon’s Public Disclosures Need a Mosaic Test

RealClearDefense
AnalysisSeptember 3, 2026

The Best Discovery Machines Know How to Disappoint Us

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 2, 2026

The AI Age Needs a New Definition of Sovereignty

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 2, 2026

Trump’s AI Mandate: Defining Killer Robots Won’t Save Us — Hardcoding Human Control Will

Washington Examiner
AnalysisSeptember 2, 2026

Industrial AI Needs an Authority Test Before It Touches the Physical World

Eurasia Review
Op-EdSeptember 1, 2026

Calling AI the New Columbus Is Too Accurate to Be a Compliment

Eurasia Review
MemorandumSeptember 1, 2026

Britain Settled the Algorithm Question, But the Assurance Question Is Open

Britain’s World · Council on Geostrategy · The Memorandum No. 43.2026
Op-EdSeptember 1, 2026

The Loudest Alarm Is Usually the Wrong One

The Cove · Australian Army professional development platform
Op-EdSeptember 1, 2026

The Next Autonomous-Weapon Failure May Be a Drone That Obeys Every Rule

Eurasia Review
AnalysisSeptember 1, 2026

AI Is Giving the Kill Chain a False-Precision Problem

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 31, 2026

We Can See Earth’s Past, We Cannot Send It a Message

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 31, 2026

The Alliance Has No Common Answer to a Machine-Speed Question

The Defence Horizon Journal
Op-EdAugust 28, 2026

COVID Had Quarantines and Vaccines. A Cyber Pandemic Could Infect the Cure.

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 27, 2026

A Quantum Advantage Is Not a Defense Capability Until It Survives the Whole System

RealClearDefense
AnalysisAugust 27, 2026

AI Can Discover New Materials Faster Than Science Can Validate Them

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 27, 2026

What the Next Collider Can Really Give the World Beyond Particle Physics

Eurasia Review
AnalysisAugust 26, 2026

Ratcliffe’s Moscow Visit Highlights the Strategic Value of Intelligence Backchannels Across Eurasia

Eurasia Review
AnalysisAugust 26, 2026

Bill Gates Is Right About AI Governance: Institutions Need Systems They Can Actually Govern

Eurasia Review
AnalysisAugust 26, 2026

The New U.S. Science Strategy Is Quietly Redrawing Eurasia’s Innovation Map

Eurasia Review
AnalysisAugust 26, 2026

The Quantum Sensor Arms Race Has an Alliance Accounting Problem

Eurasia Review
AnalysisAugust 26, 2026

AI Can Find the Anomaly, It Cannot Tell You What Caused It

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 25, 2026

Nobody Audits the Clock

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 25, 2026

Quantum Computers May Need AI Before AI Needs Quantum Computers

Techstrong.ai
AnalysisAugust 25, 2026

NATO’s Next Supply Chain Vulnerability Has No Factory Floor

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 25, 2026

Science Has Discovery Thresholds. It Also Needs Stop Rules.

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 24, 2026

AI Agents Are Getting Wallets: Security Needs to Follow the Money

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 22, 2026

Discovery Is a Rank, Not a Feeling

Eurasia Review
AnalysisAugust 22, 2026

Open Societies Cannot Win an Information War by Becoming Closed Ones

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 22, 2026

The Most Important Number in Corporate AI Is the One Companies Rarely Report

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 21, 2026

The Quantum Arms Race Has a Baseline Problem

Geopolitical Monitor
Op-EdAugust 20, 2026

Trust the Signal, Doubt the Position

RealClearDefense
Op-EdAugust 20, 2026

The Machine Can Be Tuned, the Nucleus Cannot Be Persuaded

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 20, 2026

The Next Flash Crash May Happen on a Battlefield

Eurasia Review
AnalysisAugust 20, 2026

Ukraine’s Drone War Is Rewriting What ‘Tested’ Means

Eurasia Review
AnalysisAugust 20, 2026

AUKUS Should Give Australia the Right to Test What It Is Asked to Trust

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 20, 2026

AI Can Find the Weird, It Cannot Tell Us What It Is

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 19, 2026

When Machines Search for Discoveries, Science Has to Count the Search

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 19, 2026

Signal Authentication Is Not Navigation Integrity

GPS World
AnalysisAugust 19, 2026

The First Clean Signal Is Not Permission to Fire: On Resilience and Governance of Autonomous Systems

Modern War Institute at West Point
Op-EdAugust 19, 2026

Trump Is Right to Send Allies the Bill. Cutting Our Own Drills Is the Wrong Currency

Washington Examiner
AnalysisAugust 19, 2026

NATO’s Drone Wall Has a Sensor Deception Problem

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 19, 2026

Earthquakes Shake the Ionosphere. That Doesn’t Mean It Predicts Them

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 18, 2026

Your Company Approved an AI System That No Longer Exists

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 2026

The AI Kill Switch Act Needs a Containment Layer

Techstrong.ai
Op-EdAugust 18, 2026

Every Measurement Has a Physical Limit: Scientific AI Pretends Otherwise

Eurasia Review
AnalysisAugust 18, 2026

Three Sensors, One Witness: The Corroboration Trap in Allied Intelligence

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 2026

Trump Handed Cops the Power to Jam Drones. Bad Software Could Ruin It

Washington Examiner
Op-EdAugust 2026

The Pentagon Is Cutting Red Tape and Setting a Legal Minefield for AI Contractors

Washington Examiner
Op-EdAugust 15, 2026

Antimatter Starships Are Farther Away Than You Think

RealClearScience
AnalysisAugust 15, 2026

The Next Scientific Breakthrough May Depend on AI Saying ‘Unknown’

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 15, 2026

The Next Arms-Control Breakthrough May Be a Proof That Reveals Almost Nothing

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 14, 2026

Trump Says Humans Control the Bomb. The Code Doesn’t Know That Yet

Washington Examiner
Op-EdAugust 13, 2026

The AI Arms Race Will Be Won in Year Two

Geopolitical Monitor
AnalysisAugust 13, 2026

The Red Sea Broke the Escalation Ladder

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 13, 2026

We’re Building Beijing’s Spy Network for Them, One Convenient Device at a Time

Washington Examiner
Op-EdAugust 12, 2026

Medical AI Can Pass the Test and Still Fail Patients

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 10, 2026

Who Will Believe the Space Logs in 2040? Space Governance and the Quantum Audit Problem

The Space Review (in association with SpaceNews)
AnalysisAugust 10, 2026

America Is Exporting AI to Allies: It Needs Rules for Turning Access Off

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 10, 2026

Defense Networks Will Split. The Requirement Should Say Who Decides.

RealClearDefense
Op-EdAugust 6, 2026

Trump’s AI Exemption Isn’t an Oversight Gap. It’s a National Security Masterstroke

Washington Examiner
Op-EdAugust 6, 2026

Europe’s Military AI Gap Begins at Fielding

Geopolitical Monitor
AnalysisAugust 5, 2026

America’s Drone Standards Will Travel Far Beyond America

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 5, 2026

Trump Isn’t John Lennon. That’s Why His Iran Strategy Might Actually Work

Washington Examiner
Op-EdAugust 4, 2026

The Race to Write NATO’s Military AI Rulebook Has Begun

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 4, 2026

Silicon Valley Can’t Own the Pentagon’s Kill Switch

Washington Examiner
AnalysisAugust 3, 2026

Chokepoint Coercion in the Next Phase of the Iran Conflict

Eurasia Review
Op-EdAugust 3, 2026

The Vulnerability of Autonomous Warfare Systems

RealClearDefense
Op-EdAugust 2, 2026

Europe Delayed Its AI Rules Because the Institutions Were Not Ready

Eurasia Review
AnalysisJuly 31, 2026

Zero Trust Stops at the AI

Security Boulevard (Techstrong Group)
Op-EdJuly 30, 2026

What Trump’s Record Border Numbers Are Hiding

Washington Examiner
CommentaryJuly 30, 2026

The Human-in-the-Loop Is Becoming a Rubber Stamp. Acquisition Can Fix It.

Military AI
Op-EdJuly 29, 2026

Six Governments Wrote One Driverless Rule, But They Kept Four Regulators

Geopolitical Monitor
AnalysisJuly 29, 2026

From Fordow to New York: What Force Cannot Verify in Iran’s Nuclear Program

Eurasia Review
Op-EdJuly 29, 2026

Arming Local Police With Drones. Who Pulls the Trigger?

RealClearDefense
Op-EdJuly 28, 2026

Today’s Hydra Problem: Decapitation Without Degradation

Eurasia Review
Invited OpinionJuly 27, 2026

Adversaries Don’t Need a Zero-Day — They Read Your Rulebook

Dark Reading (Informa TechTarget)
Invited AnalysisJuly 24, 2026

Whose Decision Was It? Drone Swarms and the Accountability Gap in Ukraine

Lieber Institute for Law and Warfare, United States Military Academy at West Point · Articles of War
Op-EdJuly 24, 2026

America Just Did the World’s Dirty Work

Washington Examiner
Op-EdJuly 23, 2026

The Wax Was Melting: AI Speed and the Nuclear Decision

Geopolitical Monitor
Op-EdJuly 23, 2026

Binders Won’t Stop Bullets: When Military AI Can’t Say ‘No’

Washington Examiner
Op-EdJuly 23, 2026

Allied Autonomy Is Creating a New Seam in Extended Deterrence

Global Security Review · National Institute for Deterrence Studies
Op-EdJuly 22, 2026

The Iran War Began With Biden, Not Trump

Washington Examiner
Op-EdJuly 22, 2026

Who Yields in Orbit? Autonomous Satellites Need a Right-of-Way Rule

Eurasia Review
Op-EdJuly 21, 2026

Why We Punish the Protection That Works

Eurasia Review
Op-EdJuly 21, 2026

America’s Allies Should Test the AI They Plan to Depend On

Geopolitical Monitor
Op-EdJuly 21, 2026

The Next Offset Won’t Be a Smarter AI, It Will Be a Governable One

Eurasia Review
Op-EdJuly 20, 2026

We Guarded China’s Oil for Free. Trump Sent Them the Bill

Washington Examiner
Op-EdJuly 19, 2026

Two Years After CrowdStrike, We Are Still Afraid of the Wrong AI Apocalypse

Eurasia Review
Op-EdJuly 17, 2026

The Reciprocity Inversion: How Ukraine Became the Gulf’s Counter-Drone Lifeline

Geopolitical Monitor (Situation Reports) · syndicated on Eurasia Review
AnalysisJuly 16, 2026

What Six Years of Drone Proliferation Means for the Next Fight

Eurasia Review
Op-EdJuly 16, 2026

Military AI - The Confidence You Cannot See

RealClearDefense
AnalysisJuly 14, 2026

The Governance Gap Hiding in Plain Sight Across Eight Industries

Eurasia Review
Op-EdJuly 13, 2026

Your AI Agent’s Permission Model Is Built on a Boolean. Irreversible Actions Need More Than That.

IT Ops Times (D2 Emerge)
Op-EdJuly 13, 2026

The Cruel Economics of the 19-Day Anthropic Ban

RealClearMarkets
Op-EdJuly 13, 2026

Who Fires the Shot? Closing the Authority Gap in Indo-Pacific Autonomous Warfare

Geopolitical Monitor · syndicated on Eurasia Review
Op-EdJuly 2, 2026

The One Clause in Trump's AI Memo That Could Encumber the Off-Switch

RealClearDefense
Op-EdJune 30, 2026

When the Machine Decides and the Human Signs

The Defense Post
Op-EdJune 26, 2026

When the Machine Acts First: Closing the Authority Gap on the Autonomous Battlefield

Modern War Institute at West Point
Editorial RecognitionJune to September 2026

Selected four times for UPI's Korea Regional Review Director's Corner

United Press International (UPI), Korea Regional Review · Director's Corner, June 26, August 19, September 3 and September 22, 2026 · Editorially curated national-security review; four selections, each carrying editorial commentary that engages the argument directly, alongside analyses from Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, War on the Rocks and Small Wars Journal.
Editorial RecognitionJune 23, 2026

Featured in the Parliamentary Observatory on AI of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean

Centre for Global Studies, Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean · Weekly Digest on AI and Emerging Technologies, June 23, 2026 · The author's RUSI commentary on Operation Midnight Hammer and AI-era command was selected for the observatory's curated digest, summarized alongside analyses from Defense One, Defense News, and Breaking Defense.
Op-EdJune 22, 2026

Space Autonomy Needs an Authority Architecture Before 2027

The Space Review (in association with SpaceNews)
Policy CommentaryJune 16, 2026

The Hour That Worked: What Midnight Hammer Teaches About AI-Era Command

Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Guest Commentary
Policy CommentaryJune 12, 2026

When an AI Agent Fires First, Who Answers for It?

Military AI
Op-EdJune 4, 2026

The Quantum Clock Is Already Ticking on America's Autonomous Arsenal

RealClearDefense

These commentaries draw on a broader body of governance research, including seven governance architectures and 48 open-access works (31 Zenodo DOIs and 17 SSRN working papers). The complete catalogue is on the Publications page.

Third-Party Citations and External References

Who has cited this work
All 29 sources, across 15 countries
Academic and peer-reviewed 7
Middle East Policy
Wiley, cited at endnote 43
DOI 10.1111/mepo.70106
arXiv preprint
CSIRO Data61 team
Australia
arXiv preprint
Sir Syed CASE and Strathclyde
Pakistan and UK
The Cascade Protocol
Pomona College
United States
LexAI Journal
University of Toronto
Canada
Autonomy taxonomy preprint
Cited in an independent scholarly taxonomy
India
Experimental cosmologist’s newsletter
Tested against that field’s premature-discovery case
3,500 subscribers
Government 1
U.S. Federal Register
Cited by name, public comment
91 FR 30789, note 10
Institutional and policy 4
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Overnight Brief, three editions
United States
UK Stop Killer Robots
Campaign resource
United Kingdom
Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean
Parliamentary Observatory on AI digest
Malta
Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation
Featured analysis
United States
Media and curated selection 6
Syndicated investigative feature
Quoted by name, carried by six publications
United States
United Press International
Director’s Corner, three selections
Korea Regional Review
Indian Strategic Studies
Eight selections, five with commentary
India
Géopolitique Profonde
Carried into French under a staff byline
France
NewsFire Global
Cited analysis
Greece
Albanian Institute for Geopolitics
Translated and republished in full
Kosovo
Practitioner 6
Berigo AS
Term operationalised for clients
Norway
Device Security Lab
Cited analysis
Japan
Defense logistics paper
Addressed to ministries of defence
Colombia
Prosthetic Gods
Podcast discussion
United States
Wayfinder Systems Group
Two docket comments built on his recommendations
NHTSA-2026-1552-0022 · NHTSA-2026-1585-0009
Modern War Institute at West Point
Commentary by an Army autonomy adviser
United States

Each source is counted once however many times it has cited the work, and a syndicated article is counted once however many outlets carry it. Dated entries with verifiable links follow below and on the impact record.

Broadcast InterviewAugust 2026

France 24 English

Live two-way from Washington · On-screen identification: “Burak Oktenli, Independent Researcher on AI Governance and Autonomous Systems”

Invited by the French international broadcaster for live analysis of a reported autonomous drone strike, arguing that the demand for a human in the loop is obsolete for weapons that navigate by onboard camera because the link can be jammed, and that a system’s permission to strike should lapse automatically when sensor integrity or target evidence falls below the level that justified the mission. This is an invitation to speak as a subject-matter expert rather than a citation of published work.

Government RecordMay 26, 2026

United States Federal Register (NHTSA)

Incident Reporting for Automated Driving Systems and Level 2 ADAS

A public comment by Burak Oktenli (NHTSA-2026-0529-0007) is cited by name in footnote 10 of the notice at 91 FR 30789, Docket NHTSA-2026-0529.

Academic Citation2026

Middle East Policy (Wiley)

Peer-reviewed journal article · DOI 10.1111/mepo.70106 · Endnote 43

A peer-reviewed article cites the applicant’s Geopolitical Monitor analysis of counter-drone reciprocity as the source for its account of ten-year security agreements exchanging air-defence capability for counter-drone expertise. His first citation in a peer-reviewed journal issued by a major academic publisher.

Academic Citation2026

University of Toronto, LexAI Journal

University of Toronto Law and Ethics of AI Students' Association

The Escalation Risk Assessment Model (ERAM) is cited as Reference #4 in “The Ethics of AI in U.S. Warfare.”

Academic CitationJune 2026

Cited in a Taxonomy of Advanced AI Systems (Lt Gen (Dr) R S Panwar)

Lt Gen (Dr) R S Panwar (Indian Army, Retired), Doctorate in Computer Science, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay · Academia.edu preprint, June 2026

"Cognition, Agency, and Authority: A Taxonomy of Advanced AI Systems with Military Implications" cites the author's working paper on AI-enabled military decision-making and escalation risk (endnote 39) in support of its analysis of strategic risk in cognitively sophisticated AI systems.

arXiv PreprintMay 2026

Cited in an arXiv preprint on shadow AI in critical infrastructure

Baruwal Chhetri, Tariq, Aamir, Grobler, Thapa & Singh (CSIRO Data61), arXiv:2606.00088

“From Frontier to Shadow AI: A Simmering Threat to Assurance and Security in Critical Infrastructure” cites the applicant's SSRN analysis of AI outpacing human clearance models (reference 41), in a study of 27 Australian critical-infrastructure organizations.

arXiv PreprintJuly 2026

Cited in an arXiv preprint on unsupervised tunnel detection in ground-penetrating radar

Junaid, Khan & Ahmed (Sir Syed CASE Institute of Technology; University of Strathclyde), arXiv:2607.04882

“Unsupervised Detection of Underground Tunnels in Ground-Penetrating Radar Using Depth-Restricted Reconstruction Scoring” cites the author's SSRN paper Strategic Subterranean Domain Awareness (SSRN 6046594) as reference [1], with two in-body citations on pipeline-monitoring early warning and the tunnel detection problem.

Media CitationAugust 2026

The Intercept, and in syndication across five further publications

TomDispatch feature by a bylined contributing writer

A syndicated investigative feature quotes the applicant’s Articles of War analysis directly on where responsibility for an autonomous system’s actions properly sits, identifies him as an independent researcher on artificial-intelligence systems and their governance, and sets the underlying proposition in display type. Recorded as one citation carried by six outlets.

Institutional CitationAugust to September 2026

Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Overnight Brief

Excerpted three times: twice within nine days in August, including in the brief’s Must-Reads selection, and again in September

A Washington national-security policy institute carried the applicant’s analysis in its daily brief on three separate occasions, distributed to a policy and congressional readership.

Translated RepublicationAugust 2026

Albanian Institute for Geopolitics, Pristina

Full translation into Albanian, published in the institute’s Analysis section

A non-governmental research institution translated one of the applicant’s analyses in full, credited the original outlet, linked his author page there, and marked the translation as the institute’s own work. The first instance of his work being translated and republished by a research institution.

Curated SelectionJune to September 2026

Indian Strategic Studies

Eight selections, five carrying original analytical commentary and a question put to readers

A curated research portal maintained by a retired Indian Army major general, formerly senior directing staff at his country’s National Defence College, has selected eight of the applicant’s pieces and, on five occasions, written original analysis extending the argument before inviting its professional readership to debate it.

This is a selection. Twenty-nine distinct external sources across fifteen countries have cited, quoted, republished or built on this work, spanning government, academic, institutional, practitioner and media references. Source links and the full record are on the Citations and Recognition page.

The Governance Gap

As autonomous and AI-enabled systems take on time-critical decisions in defense and critical infrastructure, a gap is opening between what these systems can do and the frameworks meant to hold them accountable. When a system acts faster than a person can intervene, existing oversight models struggle with a basic question: under whose authority did it act, and who is responsible for the outcome? Closing that gap means separating evidence-based risks from speculation and defining clear criteria for bounded authority, accountability, and auditable control. These are the questions this research examines.

Credibility and Evidence

This research is built on public and openly available sources, credible institutional and government reports, and peer-reviewed literature where available. Assumptions are stated, confidence levels are noted, and claims are verifiable through the cited sources. The work does not rely on, claim, or imply access to classified information, and it has not been reviewed or endorsed by any government agency.

Contact

Inquiries: info@burakoktenli.com

This page presents independent research and analysis. Burak Oktenli is not an elected official, government official, or agency representative, and is not affiliated with any government agency or intergovernmental body. References to institutions are analytical and do not imply affiliation or endorsement.