Biotechnological design of "soldier of the future": transhumanistic vector of military activity

Strel'nikov Dmitrii Olegovich PhD in Philosophy Senior Educator, the department of History of Wars and Military Art,  Zhukovsky – Gagarin Air Force Academy (Voronezh) 394064, Russia, Voronezhskaya oblast', g. Voronezh, ul. Starykh Bol'shevikov, 54 a strelnikov.article@yandex.ru

Military human enhancement: problem statement

An urgent task of military science, regardless of the historical stage of its development, remains the search for technologies on the basis of which promising combat and supporting means of armed struggle will be developed.

In many technologically advanced countries, advanced research agencies have been established and are successfully functioning. Their purpose is to achieve and maintain military-technological superiority over a likely enemy. For example, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has been striving since 1958 to initiate technological breakthroughs in the interests of US national security and to prevent the sudden appearance of new means of armed struggle in other states ^[14].

The Foundation for Advanced Research was established in Russia in 2012 as an analogue of DARPA. There are similar organizations in Israel, India, China and France.

The field of scientific interests of advanced research agencies is not limited to network technologies, robotics technologies, the development of weapons based on new physical principles, etc. Research aimed at biotechnological improvement of the functional capabilities of military personnel is being systematically carried out. In English—language expert texts, there is a concept generalizing this activity - military human enhancement ("improvement" or "improvement" of a military person).

Modern projects of biotechnological improvement of a person (human bioenhancing) are considered by many researchers as the first promising steps towards the implementation of transhumanistic projects for the construction of a posthuman, perfect in the moral, physical and intellectual sense ^{[6, p. 4]}. Military activity, which is far from transhumanistic ideals in the first approximation, was influenced by ideas about the displacement of the human in favor of the non—human with a specific applied goal - the creation of an ideal "soldier of the future", as the sum of various biotechnologies. It should be clarified that military activity in this direction is oriented precisely on some transhumanist ideas, and not on the value system of transhumanism as a whole.

The key idea of transhumanism: man as an object of transformation into an evolutionarily more perfect being ^{[4, p. 135]}. Military science does not set such ambitious goals for itself. However, the side effects of biotechnological improvement of military personnel, due to the advanced nature of military technologies, can have an impact on civilizational processes.

The human factor is considered the weakest link in the functioning of complex military-technical systems. Therefore, when servicing them, a serviceman should not be burdened with an unstable moral and psychological state, reduced attention, fatigue and physiologically limited during the performance of a combat mission. Biotechnological improvement projects are designed to neutralize the cognitive, psychological and physical limitations of military personnel. But at the same time, acute social, anthropological and ethical problems arise that accompany structural changes in military affairs. In this connection, it is necessary to develop forms and methods of preventive, if possible proactive, humanitarian analysis of technoscientific projects ^{[12, p. 9]}. This will prevent the emergence of such types of biotechnologies, which inevitably transform the values and moral criteria of "improved" military personnel with their help. If biotechnological improvements become irreversible, it will generate social inequality and will leave an imprint not only on the course of the armed struggle, but also on the adaptation of servicemen in society after completing military service. In this case, the role of philosophy, bioethics and international humanitarian law in the expert evaluation of military biotechnologies should steadily increase.

The hidden influence of transhumanism on military activity

Military activity in this study is understood as a kind of socio-political activity for the creation, and if necessary, the use of means of armed struggle and other elements of the military power of the state to achieve certain state or socio-group goals ^{[3, p. 126]}. Military activity is directly dependent on the military organization of the state, which develops historically and depends on the type of social development. Modern military-theoretical and military-practical activities reflect the dynamics of the development of the information society and its leading technologies. Of particular interest to developers of weapons, military and special equipment are convergent (nano-, bio-, info-, cognitive (NBIC)) technologies.

The technological basis for the formation of a new weapon system is considered to be a set of NBIC technologies ^{[2, p. 4]}. Thus, specialized departments and departments are being created in research institutes and organizations focused on the development of advanced weapons using convergent technologies.

The research focus of the military scientific community, as a rule, is focused on the following key technological areas: artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and control channels for weapons and military equipment, cyber technologies, space and military biotechnology ^[21].

Of the listed technologies, it is the biotechnological design that causes the greatest concerns and a strong emotional reaction in society. The US Army has already developed applications and devices for monitoring the health of military personnel (including early warning of COVID–2019 infection), developed military pharmacology, designed exoskeletons and other, including implantable, equipment that significantly increases the functionality of the human body.

Thus, the United States of America and its allies, after experimenting with psychostimulating drugs in the Vietnam War of 1964-1973 and in later military conflicts, did not abandon attempts to "modernize" the physicality and consciousness of military personnel in order to match the nature of modern warfare and dominate the armed forces of China and North Korea gaining combat readiness ^[16].

The transhumanistic vector of the ongoing research has developed due to the satisfaction of the need of the command of the US armed forces for a reliable, "trouble-free" link in the management of weapons and military equipment.

Such ideals of transhumanism as the use of scientific achievements in order to replenish, maintain and increase the natural resources of the human body, the replacement of worn-out, diseased organs with artificial ones, experiments with consciousness and an artificial body, manifest themselves in military activities in a specific form. The pragmatism of military technologies is to gain combat advantages over the enemy during military conflicts. Negative social, anthropological and ethical consequences of biotechnological improvement of military personnel are often not taken into account. Research is carried out, as a rule, within the framework of closed projects of defense departments without the involvement of specialists in bioethics, ethics of scientific research and philosophy of technology.

The absence of specialized specialists in the military scientific community does not allow us to draw a line between the improvement of military personnel and their transmutation (transition to fundamentally new boundaries of existence).

Classification of human enhancement technologies for military purposes

Using the classification of B.G. Yudin ^{[13, p. 23-26]}, technologies for improving a person for military purposes can be divided into:

therapeutic technologies that focus on restoring the violated norm, relieving pain and suffering as a result of injuries and injuries received by servicemen;

improvement technologies for overcoming natural limitations inherent in the human body during the performance of a combat mission (prolonged wakefulness, staying in unfavorable physical and geographical conditions, physical overloads, etc.);

technologies of transhumanistic "improvement", in which some properties of an "improved" serviceman will be so perfect that it will be impossible to consider him a person ("aggressive" invasive interventions in the physicality of military personnel using various types of biotechnologies).

The extreme, transhumanistic form of "improvement" of military personnel is not some kind of frightening prospect remote in time. Military "necessity" will act as a driver of exponential growth of such projects in the near future in the light of the increasing NBIC convergence.

The development of convergent technologies further problematizes the boundaries of our bodies — in the physical, physiological, ecological, psychosensory, existential dimension ^{[1, p. 16]}. Despite this, the interest of the military scientific community in the idea of biotechnological empowerment of military personnel is only increasing.

The image of the "soldier of the future": from improvement technologies to transmutation

 Assistance to human biotechnological improvement projects is considered in a number of armies of NATO countries (primarily the United States) as an opportunity to design a "soldier of the future". Realizing this idea, the military proceeds from practical considerations about the potential impact of modern technologies on the course of hostilities. The purpose of military developments in the field of biotechnological improvement of military personnel is to gain combat advantages over a likely enemy at a lower cost of manpower.

Biotechnological expansion of the capabilities of a serviceman involves such changes in the body that go beyond the normal (healthy) state and improve his mental, cognitive and physiological abilities. For example, it becomes possible to resist stress during combat in conditions of intense enemy fire, to be more resilient, even in the absence of necessary training, to maintain clarity of thinking in conditions of limited sleep, etc.

Despite the obvious advantages of implementing biotechnological projects for military purposes, there is a problem of blurring the boundaries between natural and artificial. Living objects act as an object of transformation, i.e. "matter" for the production of a useful artifact ^{[10, p. 40]} — a biotechnological military design.

The consequence of biotechnological developments aimed at improving the body and cognitive functions, prolonging life, changing brain activity, eradicating pathogenic conditions, is the modification of emotions (for example, the absence of fear), which were formed as a result of millennia of evolution ^[15]. After the "biotechnological upgrade" of transhumanistic orientation, mental states and sensory experiences will inevitably change, reflecting the attitude of the "soldier of the future" to military reality.

Emotions are a mechanism for regulating the functional state of the body and human activity. Their significance lies in warning about the destructive nature of the lack or excess of any factors [8. p. 136]. Fear on the battlefield has saved a huge number of lives in the entire military history of mankind. On the one hand, resorting to military pharmacology, it is possible to exclude a state of affect in a serviceman (the strongest emotional reaction leading to a loss of a sense of reality) during combat operations. On the other hand, the mass use of such drugs in order to completely eliminate fear in soldiers, as the Nazis tried to do during World War II, using methamphetamines (pervitin) and other narcotic drugs ^[17], will lead to an increase in the rate of escalation of the military conflict.

In the US and UK armies, similar drugs have been used for decades ^[19]. Also, the military "necessity" justified the neurostimulation of US Army personnel using small doses of electric current to increase the productivity and efficiency of decisions made during combat duty ^[20].

The Advanced Research Agency of the US Department of Defense (DARPA) is at the forefront of promoting technologies for "improving" military personnel. Since 2014, the Agency has a department of biotechnology in its structure, which implements a wide range of research programs: from applied neurology to the design of unique living systems with a set of new, including functions that do not exist in nature ^{[5, pp. 60-61]}.

Due to the closed nature of the research, it is not possible to assess how serious an intervention in the physicality of military personnel these projects suggest.

Based on open information, it can be concluded that DARPA promotes technologies for transhumanistic "improvement" of a person, considering him the weakest link in defense systems. Ideas for combining humans with biotechnological extensions (for example, implanting a microcircuit into the brain for direct transmission of information from external devices and remote control) from the field of science fiction have been reclassified into planned research programs of defense departments in the United States and other countries.

The further development and use of such technologies carries the risks that the "soldier of the future" cannot be attributed to the species homo sapiens due to an artificially programmed reaction to external stimuli and irreversible transmutation. It is not just about a local change in individual characteristics of a person, but about his modification as an integrity, a complete redrawing of his image ^{[7, p. 119]}.

DARPA openly defends such "improvement" of military personnel, based on a pragmatic calculation in favor of combat effectiveness. At a higher level, these programs are a continuation of the historically established policy of reducing human losses in military conflicts and achieving military—technological superiority of the United States.

The contradiction that has arisen can be resolved by international standards for human improvement for military purposes, developed with the participation of specialists in the field of philosophical axiology, bioethics and ethics of science. It is possible to organize such a line of work only with the participation of international institutions responsible for collective security.

Klaus Schwab, founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, notes that the future will challenge our understanding of the very essence of man, both from a biological and social point of view. Consequently, the management of biotechnologies should be based on universal and humanistic values ^{[11, pp. 180, 185]}.

Such a task can be realized only if an interdisciplinary approach is followed to the assessment of biorisks, clarification and clarification of the cultural and ethical norms of modern society and correction of international law.

The starting point for the beginning of the dialogue should be the understanding that under the slogan of military "necessity", the dynamics of biotechnological design can get out of control and military technologies of a new generation will first change the nature of armed struggle in military conflicts, and then the whole way of life in society. This was the case with the advent of the ARPANET internal data exchange network in the US Army, the principles of which formed the basis for building a global Internet network.

Technological changes are often a "disruptive" process that leads to the change or destruction of established social roles, attitudes and values ^{[18, p. 18]}. Biotechnological improvement of military personnel is not ethically and culturally neutral, as it affects deep civilizational processes. The basic value that underlies the desire to create and use biotechnologies of innovation is the power over the physicality of a person with all his moral and physical qualities ^{[9, p. 24]}. Therefore, the development of such technologies can change all ideas about physical, military-patriotic and spiritual education. The ways of forming high moral and combat qualities in military personnel will change significantly or lose their significance altogether.

The presented problem actualizes any format of interaction between representatives of the philosophical community and military science. Unfortunately, military problems are not considered by academic philosophy as urgent, and the military underestimate the power of the prognostic function of the mother of all sciences.

As basic proposals for interdisciplinary cooperation, we note the possibility of creating a bioethics committee under the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation; organizing a round table "The impact of biotechnologies on the military security of the state" at the International Military-Technical Forum "Army", at which the problems of the development of convergent technologies have already been discussed.

Conclusions

1. Advanced research agencies in some countries consider the "soldier of the future" as an object of transformation, which grows with technological extensions and becomes a full-fledged means of armed struggle in military conflicts. It is no longer about the use of weapons by a person, but the identification of a serviceman with him.

2. Military technologies have repeatedly become a driver of large-scale changes in society. The implementation of projects for the biotechnological improvement of military personnel can have a significant impact on civilizational processes, including making the appearance of a posthuman more tangible.

3. Biotechnological empowerment of military personnel can act as a "disruptive" innovation capable of making critical, unpredictable changes to military systems.

4. In the context of the rapid development of biotechnologies, there is a need to develop mechanisms for their regulation within defense departments and to develop international standards for human improvement for military purposes.