> the moral choice might well be the drones - because it doesn't put our service members at risk.

Not so clear cut. Because now sending people to die in distant wars is likely to get a negative reaction at home, this creates some sort of impediment for waging war. Sometimes not enough, but it's not nothing. Sending your boys to die for fuck knows what.

If you're just sending AI powered drones, it reduces the threshold for war tremendously, which in my mind is not "the moral choice".

All of this assuming AI is as good as humans.