Operation Epic Fury: The First AI War and The Revolution in Military Affairs

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran: nine hundred strikes in twelve hours — the largest American military operation in a generation and the first full-spectrum Artificial  Intelligence (AI) war in history.

This essay addresses three analytical questions in sequence.

First: the twenty-three days, from the opening strike to the Trump ceasefire statement on March 23 — a complete operational chronology of how the war began, escalated, degraded Iran’s military capacity, and reached its diplomatic terminus.

Second: was Epic Fury the first AI war — the definitional question that determines whether this conflict constitutes a qualitative break from all previous uses of AI in warfare.

Third: is the first AI war another Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) — and if so, which of the five diagnostic RMA criteria were confirmed in combat, and which remains dangerously incomplete.

The answers, rendered on Day 23 with full operational data: yes, yes, and four of five.