Military Review English Edition January-February 2015 | Page 97
ENHANCED SOLDIER
Enhanced Warrior War Story—2003
D
uring Operation Iraqi Freedom, B-2 stealth bomber pilots flew non-stop combat missions from
Whiteman AFB (Air Force Base), Missouri, averaging 35.3 hours per sortie. Missions to Afghanistan
reached a maximum sortie length of 44 hours. Each crew of two pilots used fatigue countermeasures consisting of preflight zolpidem and inflight use of napping, caffeine, or dextroamphetamine.
—David N. Kenagy et al., “Dextroamphetamine Use During B-2 Combat Missions,” Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine,
Volume 75, Number 5, May 2004.
Patrick Lin states,
Our ability to “upgrade” the bodies of
soldiers through drugs, implants, and
exoskeletons may be upending the ethical
norms of war as we’ve understood them … .
We want our warfighters to be made stronger, more aware, more durable, and more
maneuverable in different environments … .
Once ethical and safety issues are resolved,
militaries will need to attend to the impact
of human enhancements on their operations
… . In changing human biology, we also may
be changing the assumptions behind existing
laws of war and even human ethics.22
Edmund G. Howe, director of the medical ethics
program at the Uniformed Services University, writes
in a 2010 book on bio-inspired innovation that new
methods in biotechnology, nanoscience, and neurobiology raise ethical questions because of how they
can change the human body.23 Howe says that even
though innovations support accomplishing missions,
consideration of their use must account for ethics.
He believes that before new technologies are used in
military operations—which should be the priority of
use—U.S. forces need to set ethical boundaries.
The Department of Defense discusses soldier
enhancement in the 2011 Force Health Protection
Concept of Operations (CONOPS).24 This document
states that human performance optimization “will
improve the ability of the future joint force to complete essential tasks.”25 While not clear on the means,
it states that human performance optimization “will
extend physical and mental endurance and enhance
physiological and psychological resilience to reduce
injury and illness.”26
MILITARY REVIEW January-February 2015
The documen Ё