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Neither Ironman nor the Hulk: Human Enhancements for Military Purposes

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01.24.2025 at 06:00am
Neither Ironman nor the Hulk: Human Enhancements for Military Purposes Image

Fifty years ago Alvin Toffler foretold the future possibility that man will have the capability to redesign the human body. His assertion followed only eight years after the Noble Prize was awarded for describing DNA molecules. “New genetic knowledge will permit us to tinker with human heredity manipulate the genes to create altogether new versions of man.”[1]  His future is our reality. In 2020 Dr. Jennifer Doudna was the Nobel laureate in Biochemistry for the “development of a method for gene editing.”  For thousands of years human life has adapted to its dynamic environment according to Darwin’s observations. Today we confront the advent of rapidly emerging technologies and converging with new biological knowledge that now gives man the ability to change themselves.[2]  This potentiality is perhaps most consequential for U.S. special operations forces who operate on the global periphery and will likely be the first to confront the realities of enhanced soldiers.

Given the trajectory of scientific discovery, the US faces moral and ethical questions surrounding the adoption of these new discoveries to enhance and accelerate human abilities particularly when it is intended for military purposes.  One side of the debate are the bio-conservatives such as Fukuyama who embraces essentialism[3] or the many derivatives from Mirandola’s Oration.[4] These along with others collectively argue that man’s natural self is endangered by human enhancements threatening our current and future state of being. Conversely there are transhumanist who view a historical coevolving relationship between man and their invented technologies. They advocate for bio-enhancements that ensure our species survival,[5] or show how humans can remain at the center of change to create better futures.[6] This advocacy for bio-enhancements seeks to confront a pace of change never before experienced by human civilization,[7] or to simply advance the discussion about promising possibilities from enhancements to ensure equal access to all.[8] It is important to note that many non-western cultures hold different moral beliefs do not ask the same ethical questions.

The debates centered on the diverse possibilities from emergent life sciences extend to the military, and especially to those forces that perform different tasks than conventional formations. It is logical that rich nations like China and the United States (U.S.) would seek technologic advantage over competitors and adversaries.  US government sponsored research includes project topics to include synthetic biology, neuro and cognitive science, biological systems, and AI to name a few. Collectively the portfolio of research reveals the pursuit of human enhancement for military purposes. However, the current internal U.S. government debate is frozen, constrained by ethical choices framed in a time outpaced by dynamic scientific advancement and dependent social change. While the US moves cautiously potential adversaries with different cultural paradigms are less constrained to explore or exploit opportunities to gain advantage from bio-enhancements.

This article takes a transhumanist position contrary to extant U.S. government policy that applies a restraining civil societal ethic to human research thus creating dangerous limitations on human research intended for military purposes. This paper will explore the types of human enhancements, military benefits, and describe the context of the emergent security environment followed by an ethical framing from which to advocate for increased research funding. This research sustains future opportunity for adopting new discoveries in order to keep pace with scientific change and maintain advantage over our current and future adversaries.

For many Americans the ideas about biological enhanced superheroes were first revealed in comics and goes back almost eighty years to Ironman,[9] the incredible Hulk,[10]and Captain America.[11]  They each had unique enhancements that were unnatural which permitted them to excel in the performance of duties to combat the bad guy and protect America. This is no longer fiction or fantasy. Ten years ago, then Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, Admiral McRaven announced a goal to develop an “Iron Man suit.” This suit’s essence is an exoskeleton that would protect the operator and provide them superhuman abilities such as fast running, bounding to heights, and carrying heavy loads without exhaustion. Such enhanced capabilities would propel special operations abilities beyond our adversaries. The idea was formally called the tactical assault light operator suit (TALOS) and provided over $80 million in funding to drive technology development toward this vision.  Although it failed to deliver, the “suit” was a catalyst for innovation and scientific advancement which should continue with research sponsorships, investments, and experimentation to delimit the range of enhancements as well as associated risks. Avoiding this discussion while our adversaries march ahead accrues risk.

Beyond external enhancements, the greatest potential might exist by turning inward on the human itself.  The rapid evolution of biological discoveries is now being compared to Moore’s law that is most often used to describe the rate of computer processor speeds as an analog to measure broader technologic advancement. This juxtaposition means that rates of advancement in biological knowledge and capability are on the same trajectory with other sciences described as the “curve of exponential change.”[12] Keeping pace with this rate of change combined with convergences among these parallel scientific evolutions is breathtaking, leaving no time to pause because of the real possibility of being left behind.

Human Enhancements

There is general agreement that four broad areas of research have the greatest potential for human enhancements: pharmaceuticals; bioelectronics; genetics;[13] and cognitive-neuroscience.[14] Human enhancements range from temporary and reversible types associated with pharmaceuticals that often viewed as more acceptable by society. Americans are huge consumers of pharmaceuticals. However, the other end of the spectrum offers permanent modifications that could be naturally passed on through DNA from the application of inheritable human genome editing (HHGE). This type of modification is risky given the uncertainties resulting from limited experimental research. The potential exists to radically accelerate the evolution of man or selected soldiers to the same degree that will occur naturally over fifty-six generations and do it in less than thirty years.[15]

We are most familiar with pharmacology which is the use of nutrition, supplements and chemical means to temporarily induce or influence your physical, cognitive, and emotional state. These include basic stimulants such as caffeine or other drugs used to enhance sleep, reduce pain, or improve memory. This category also includes multidisciplinary approaches to human performance such as blood doping and steroids. Military personnel have benefited from stimulants and tradition medicines, but have been precluded from more advanced human performance methods. Imagine the use of blood doping and pharmacology to permit a service member’s increased performance at altitude or improved muscular strength and endurance. The notion of fairness that exists with clearly defined rules for sport are misapplied to the real competition and conflict between and among states.

Bioelectronics is the second broad category of research that provides new means for human enhancement. Many of the forward edge tech companies are finding new ways to join man and machine. Biotechnology includes exploring neurological control of external machines such as drones or robots for civil and military purposes. It also might include more intrusive approaches such as Brain to Brain Interface (BII) that include mind reading and sharing; robotic and sensory implants such as robotic prosthetics or sensor linked to your brain that allows one to process or “see” the IR spectrum.[16] In January 2024 Elon Musk’s Neuralink performed the first brain chip implant.  Each of these methods use brain signals to function with machines to increase our capacity and capability in unlimited ways. There are therapeutic benefits and certainly unlimited military uses.

Genetics is a very wide-ranging field and has great potential to change human society. The Human Genome Project (HGP) was one of the great feats of exploration in history. Rather than an outward exploration of the planet or the cosmos, the HGP was an inward voyage of discovery led by an international team of researchers looking to sequence and map all of the genes — together known as the genome — of members of our species, Homo sapiens. Beginning on October 1, 1990 and completed in April 2003, the HGP gave us the ability, for the first time, to read nature’s complete genetic blueprint for building a human being.[17]

As a consequence of sequencing the human map a new and hidden arms race has begun. The Chinese Communist Party is applying a different ethical model and seeks to lead in realizing the full potential of the human genome.[18] Many other countries have also turned to genetic research to advance the human condition. Should the United States tie its own hands?  Genomic technology has many benefits such as enabling precision medicine to diagnose and treat a wide range of genetic and other diseases. Genetics includes gene therapy that involves changing or modifying DNA to correct genetic flaws but can also be used to create new abilities favorable to military purposes.[19]

After discovery of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR), a technique to edit DNA, the founder immediately began to realize that gene editing would certainly be used to alter human germ cell DNA. The question was when, how, by whom and for what purpose.[20] Fortunately, ethics is a retarding mechanism to slow the pace of advanced human genetic research. No country has publicly decided to support advanced HHGE clinical research. Many countries have outright prohibited HHGE and other human research – for civil purposes.  As Dr. Doudna writes, “few technologies are inherently good or bad; what matters is how we use them.”[21] How many countries are pursuing this for military purposes is difficult to judge.

Neuroscience is the fourth major area of human research from which enhancements are derived. Neuroscience is the “science of the nervous system in all its glory astonishing complexity.”[22] The brain is not like other organs which we have deep expert knowledge, rather it remains uniquely opaque.[23] This multidisciplinary field of research crosses into the previously discussed areas to the central role of the nervous system. Significant U.S. government research funding for neuroscience, including DARPA projects, began in 2007 to “map the mind.”[24] Due to the potential for developing neuroweapons some advocate for “radical transparency” of neuroscience research by the military.[25]

Global Security Context

The current National Defense Strategy was created to address the changing international security environment, in particular the emergence of multi-player system and rise of long-term competitors to include a globalist China, revisionist Russia, and numerous rogue and nonaligned states. These actors hold divergent views about their position within the international order which often challenge existing structures and norms. A 2020 Annual Report to Congress by the Defense Department stated that “China (PRC) has maintained a laser focus on its strategic aims… and announced to become a “world class” military by 2049.”  Among possible future adversaries, Xi Jinping’s China expresses the greatest desire and potential to use its economic and cultural power in attempts to reframe the global system advantageous to them which will likely come in conflict with U.S. national security interests.[26]

Six years ago, in November 2018 a Chinese researcher named He Jiankui publicly announced he had altered a gene in human embryos bringing into focus the realities of genetics. The World Health Organization soon followed by forming an international commission to discuss the ethics surrounding cutting edge genetic research. To date WHO discussions continue about the necessity for international mechanism to report human genome research of concern. Both the broader Chinese scientific community and WHO condemned Jiankui.  A year later Xinhua, a Chinese State news agency, reported that a Shenzhen court had found Jiankui guilty of “illegal medical practices” and “…had crossed the bottom line of ethics in scientific research and medical ethics.”

What does civil genetic research have to do with possible future conflict between the PRC and the U.S.? Unlike the U.S., the PRC pursues a strategy referred to as Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) that synthesize its economic, scientific, social, and cultural development initiatives, both internal and external to China, into a holistic national security system. There is no real separation between civilian and the state (or military) with common goals and purpose. This “fusion” especially with scientific personal, efficiently maximizes the growing base of knowledge, research and discoveries to seamlessly support civil and military purposes. [27]

Ethical Framing

If science increasingly makes available a wide range of transhuman enhancements to civil society that also advantage adversaries militarily, then the DoD and the American people more broadly are confronted with difficult moral choices. When exploring the range of current and future human enhancements ethics rise to the forefront. The Belmont Report offers thoughtful insights and a commonly accepted ethical framework to guide human related research. It identifies three key principles that can be the criteria to judge acceptability of given research. More specifically, the Belmont criteria can be useful to any consideration for military adoption of specific enhancements within a particular context. The first principle is respect for the person or service member; second is beneficence, meaning to ensure that the anticipated benefits will outweigh potential drawback; third is the principle of fairness in terms of distribution of the enhancement.

Although dated conventions of war were adopted to control and place limits on how states wage war, their influence has been greatly diminished in parallel to the emergence of new international behaviors away from the dichotomy of war and peace. Today we live every day in perpetual competition with other nations, in addition to the rising influence of global corporations and other global actors, who seek influence through leverage and create prosperity through productivity.[28] A nation’s source of competitiveness is its scientific industrial base and its ability to innovate within the constraints of societal norms and government controls to advance influence and increase productivity.[29] Nations are not playing by the same rules thereby some more constrained than others.

There is also a difference in values between civil society and the military that represents it. This is observable even within free democratic states. The “individual” is voluntarily seconded and willfully sacrifices self to the importance of the Republic, its military organization, mission and fellow service members. The military is a profession with its own norms, behaviors, rewards and punishments that serve to protect American ideals. However, the military is a hierarchal system that is not democratic. The values that constrain civilian human research are misaligned with military culture and ultimately individual service member’s willful sacrifices to protect the Nation.

Within the uniformed military, among warfare theorists and policy makers there is a persistent debate over whether to “equip the man or man the equipment.”  The creation of landmines, machine guns, aircraft carriers, directed energy, and cyber weapons have changed the character of conflict. Today we confront the possibility to permanently change the nature of humans and how we wage war. Militaries are usually a  reflection of the values of the society or state it serves.  In autocratic or authoritarian regimes, the overarching prominence of state interests versus the individual diminish any semblance of moral concerns for the individual dignity or risks of long-term negative effects. As such it is very likely that our competitors and future adversaries will leverage human enhancements to gain an advantage across the spectrum of conflict.

The U.S. people and our government have judged the risk to life, limb and moral injury is outweighed by a greater societal good attained through the use of military force. Twenty years of perpetual conflict through multiple Presidential administrations evidences societal acceptance (perhaps apathy). One might argue that failure to enhance our service members performance and resilience would be an ethical mistake if we know our adversary is using all means possible to win. This is akin to a common military statement to never bring a knife to a gun fight. If we are willing to send humans into combat with the intent to kill others while risking their own lives to accomplish an essential mission, does it follow that we would reduce their chance of success by denying them increased chance to survive? Does survival in combat outweigh the possible long term, yet known future detriments from human enhancements that might surface?

Conclusion

Although modifying the human can produce significant benefits to performance and military mission accomplishment, it must be considered within the context of our adversary and broader societal acceptance of similar practices. Bioethical principles can frame a research space for the U.S. military that is different than civilian sector. The associated risks are balanced within the context of necessity to protect citizens against adversaries that will likely leverage all available means. Because increasing military personnel capability supports broader societal good, by increasing cognitive and physical performance thus probability to win, biological enhancements must be considered morally acceptable even before one begins to explore any specific opportunities.

A reframed ethical framework widens the aperture for policy decisions about human research for military purposes. Without this framing we will not advance in our scientific discoveries necessary to fully assess evolving risks, benefits and more importantly keep pace with others who are much less constrained. We should strive for a new Captain America rather than Ironman without the fears of creating the Hulk. Like the great explorers of our past, we must advance into the unknown to discover and create a better tomorrow that advantages the United States. Like those that preceded us, we must prepare for the range of possible challenges while also anticipating unexpected circumstances.[30] We do this with the faith that significant military advantages outweigh costs incurred through transhuman science that will ultimately serve to protect our society.

References

[1] Alvin Toffler. Future Shock. (New York: Random House, 1970), 176.

[2] Jennifer Doudna and Samual Sternberg. Crack in Creation. (Boston: Mariner Books, 2018), 11.

[3] Francis Fukuyama. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. (London: Profile Books, 2002).

[4] Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Oration on the Dignity of Man. Trans, Robert Caponigri. (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1984).

[5] Mark Walker. “Ship of Fools: Why Transhumanism Is The Best Bet to Prevent the Extinction of Civilization,” 94.

[6] Janier Lanier. Who Owns the Future. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013).

[7] Joel Garreau. Radical Evolution. (New York: Broadway Books, 2005), 6.

[8] Michael Bess. Our Grandchildren Redesigned (Boston: Beacon Press, 2015), 23-24.

[9] Iron Man, May, (New York: Marvel Comics, 1968).

[10] Incredible Hulk, May, (New York: Marvel Comics, 1962).

[11] Captain America, March (New York: Timely Comics, 1941).

[12] Radical Evolution, 6.

[13] Our Grandchildren Redesigned, 23-24.

[14] Jonathan Moreno. Mindwars: Brain Science in the Military in the 21st Century. (New York: Bellevue Books, 2006), 233.

[15] Hacking Darwin, 242-243.

[16] Armin Krishman, Military Neuroscience and the Coming Age of Neurowarfare (New York: Routledge, 2017).,167-169.

[17] The Human Genome Project, The National Human Genome Research Institute. https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-project

[18] Hacking Darwin, 614.

[19] Maxwell J. Mehlman and Tracy Yeheng Li, “Ethical, Legal, Social, and Policy Issues in the Use of Genomic Technology by the U.S. Military,” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 47, no. 3 (Spring 2015): 115–65. (123)

[20] Crack in Creation, 296.

[21] Ibid., 374.

[22] Mind Wars, 54.

[23] Ibid., 58.

[24] Military Neuroscience, 20.

[25] Ibid., 17.

[26] Elizabeth Economy. The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 231-233.

[27] Ibid, 45.

[28] Michael Porter. On Competition. (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing,2008), 171-172.

[29] Ibid., 175-176.

[30] Cornish, Edward. Ed. Futuring: The Exploration of the Future. (Bethesda, MD: World Future Society, 2004), 5-6.

About The Author

  • Dr. Charlie Black is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Xundis Global, LLC which specializes in helping clients navigate complexity and change. He is a scholar-practitioners who holds a PhD in Humanities from Salve Regina University and is a retired Marine Corps Infantry and Special Operations Officer with over thirty-five years of diverse experience. He currently serves as a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the University of South Florida’s Global National Security Institute and previously served as a Senior Non-Resident Fellow 2018-2022 at the Joint Special Operations University. His scholarly works focus on global complexity, the future of special operations, human insecurity, and integrated statecraft. He holds a Senior Professional position at John Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and is a frequent speaker on complexity, national security and leadership as culture making.

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