THE news that the US army is studying how neuroscience can “improve” its soldiers will once again raise the spectre of amoral scientists using any means at their disposal – drugs, genetic profiling, brain stimulation, cybernetic implants, brainwashing – to vault ethical boundaries in the pursuit of military aims.
The army-backed report from the US National Academies of Sciences anticipates a day when troops will be monitored by biosensors, selected by gene tests, stimulated with magnetic tweaks to the brain and enhanced with pills (see “Soldiers of the future”). This will inevitably spark discussions about the rise of cold-eyed super-soldiers who kill without emotion, and we should certainly be vigilant about the potential for “enhancement” to dehumanise troops, let alone the wider implications of this work for civilian life.
But by the same token, “improving” soldiers is about more than making them efficient and lethal. The depressingly routine atrocities committed by servicemen are the result of confusion, exhaustion, and the trauma of seeing comrades killed by bullet, booby trap and bloody dismemberment. These are soldiers in extreme circumstances equipped with extreme weaponry and driven to violence by violence. Or they may be veterans returning from duty to hurt their family or take their own lives. How much better if science could ensure that recruits think clearly and calmly under extraordinary pressure.
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“’Improving’ soldiers is about much more than making them efficient and lethal”
After all, modern armies exist because of a need to prevent and control violence: soldiers are trained to use force only in well-prescribed situations, and are subject to the rules of war and military law.
That doesn’t mean there is no danger of neurotechnologies being abused by the military. There is a tradition of driving warriors berserk with drugs, alcohol and magic mushrooms. Governments should think long and hard about the ethics of engaging in such research. A Terminator-style soldier would be a liability, not an asset.
But let’s not lose sight of the potential for science to rid armies of the trigger-happy, the vengeful and the deranged. Remember that the greatest challenge that forces face today is avoiding the use of violence unless absolutely necessary.
Nor should we forget how research can intervene in the war that rages off the battlefield. Veterans there are crippled by mental health problems, from stress disorders to depression to self-medication with drugs and alcohol. It would be a crime not to use neuroscience to cut this toll of suffering, if we possibly can.