Super-soldiers: augmented humans in wartime

I wrote my the­sis on the bio-con­ser­vatism think­ing of the Amer­i­can polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Fran­cis Fukuya­ma. Accord­ing to him, human nature is a fun­da­men­tal ele­ment of polit­i­cal order and of the tri­umph of lib­er­al democ­ra­cy, and in this sense the tran­shu­man­ist “human enhance­ment” project threat­ens the very future of lib­er­al soci­eties. These reflec­tions have led me to focus on the mil­i­tary dimen­sion of the prospects of aug­men­ta­tion. The US has posi­tioned itself as the lead­ing pow­er in the field of aug­ment­ed sol­diers. Indeed, the Amer­i­can Depart­ment of Defense (DoD), notably through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has not hid­den the fact that it aims to devel­op « super sol­diers », con­sid­er­ing in par­tic­u­lar that “sol­diers with no phys­i­cal, phys­i­o­log­i­cal, or cog­ni­tive lim­i­ta­tions will be the key to sur­vival and oper­a­tional dom­i­nance in the future.”

It is impor­tant to empha­sise, first of all, the diverse nature of aug­men­ta­tion tech­nolo­gies, each with their speci­fici­ties and con­straints. As far as mate­r­i­al aug­men­ta­tion devices are con­cerned, the best-known exam­ple is the exoskele­ton. Appli­ca­tions for this device in the mil­i­tary appear to be much more com­plex than for the non-mil­i­tary since sol­diers are often forced to adapt to the machine’s capa­bil­i­ties. Exoskele­tons do not cur­rent­ly appear to be able to respond to the com­plex­i­ty of human move­ments, and the many pos­si­ble inter­ac­tions between the indi­vid­ual and his or her envi­ron­ment and are still sub­ject to the prob­lem of auton­o­my. But all this could change.

The Pen­ta­gon is keep­ing a close eye on Lock­heed Martin’s Onyx pro­to­type, which is motorised for the low­er limbs, and the flex­i­ble Wyss Exo­suit device devel­oped by Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty. How­ev­er, these projects are clear­ly a far cry from the ini­tial ambi­tions of an Iron-Man-inspired armour-exoskele­ton. Beyond exoskele­tons, there are pro­grammes such as the “Z‑Man”, direct­ly super­vised by DARPA and which, inspired by gecko lizards, aim to enable com­bat­ants to climb ver­ti­cal walls while car­ry­ing a full com­bat load – with­out the use of ropes or lad­ders. DARPA is also work­ing on ultra-con­nect­ed lens­es that offer aug­ment­ed real­i­ty with the aim of “pro­vid­ing indi­vid­ual sol­diers with data from recon­nais­sance drones and sen­sors on the bat­tle­field” or mul­ti­ple cog­ni­tive devices – with or with­out surgery.

In terms of phar­ma­col­o­gy, the US armed forces, like many mil­i­tary pow­ers, have reg­u­lar­ly used chem­i­cal sub­stances through­out his­to­ry. More broad­ly, there is a strong link between drugs and war. Amphet­a­mines (to com­bat stress or fatigue) were used dur­ing the Sec­ond World War, the Kore­an War, the Viet­nam War and the Gulf War. How­ev­er, their use is under debate, par­tic­u­lar­ly because of their side effects (eupho­ria, high­er heart rate and blood pres­sure, insom­nia, etc.). An alter­na­tive is modafinil (Provig­il), a pow­er­ful psy­chos­tim­u­lant that also helps to improve alert­ness, with­out the side effects of amphet­a­mines. In addi­tion, cer­tain sub­stances such as the anx­i­olyt­ic “ema­punil” or the beta-block­er “pro­pra­nolol” can reduce post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­ders or lessen feel­ings of fear.

Aug­men­ta­tion can poten­tial­ly meet some of their needs. Mate­r­i­al devices can, for exam­ple, light­en the heavy load a com­bat­ant is car­ry­ing and reduce fatigue from long march­es, etc. Med­ica­tion, for its part, can reduce stress or exhaus­tion. How­ev­er, these should not mask the many and var­ied asso­ci­at­ed prob­lems, par­tic­u­lar­ly in eth­i­cal terms.

In 2020, for­mer Min­is­ter for the Armed Forces, Flo­rence Par­ly, announced the cre­ation of a Defence Ethics Com­mit­tee, whose first note effec­tive­ly dealt with the sub­ject of the aug­ment­ed sol­dier. This report set out the con­di­tions under which aug­men­ta­tion could be envis­aged. It rec­om­mend­ed, for exam­ple, not to resort to “inva­sive” means that con­tact the soldier’s body and put in place lim­its not to be crossed, such as genet­ic engi­neer­ing. The French posi­tion – giv­ing research on aug­ment­ed sol­diers the go-ahead – appeared to be in line with the eth­i­cal con­cerns high­light­ed in the report. While the doc­u­ment has sev­er­al lim­i­ta­tions and has been crit­i­cised (see box), it advances debate by bring­ing these issues to light. Indeed, while the US has posi­tioned itself as a leader in research on the aug­ment­ed sol­dier, it has still not estab­lished a clear eth­i­cal posi­tion on its devel­op­ment and use. Oth­er Anglo-Sax­on coun­tries, such as Eng­land, Cana­da, and Aus­tralia, are begin­ning to debate on the sub­ject, but the French ini­tia­tive clear­ly marks an impor­tant step.

The issues at stake mean that com­par­isons are dif­fi­cult to make. Nev­er­the­less, it can be said that the US has been mak­ing con­sid­er­able efforts for sev­er­al decades in the research, devel­op­ment, and use of aug­men­ta­tion. Some state­ments and ele­ments have also men­tioned Russ­ian or Chi­nese intent in this area, which makes the aug­ment­ed sol­dier a strate­gic issue for mod­ern great powers.