Military Review English Edition January-February 2015

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

Military Review English Edition January-February 2015 | Page 97