SUPER SOLDIERS
How genetic editing could change warfare
In 2014, then-President Barack Obama told a press conference: “Basically I’m here to announce that we’re building Iron Man.” He was quite serious: the US military had begun work on a project to construct a form of exoskeleton known as the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS). A promotional video shown at the press event depicted the wearer attacking a group of enemies, with bullets ricocheting off the armour. However, the project came to an end five years later without completion, although the manufacturers hope that individual components of the suit may have applications elsewhere. Exoskeletons are one example of technological developments being trialled by various militaries with the intention of improving their soldiers’ combat abilities. Such endeavours are, of course, nothing new; as far back as the Bronze Age, new technology was being used for military purposes, but whereas in the past such enhancement meant improved armour or weaponry, today the focus is also on enhancing the individual soldier.
In 2017, Vladimir Putin warned of genetic modification that might create “a soldier, a man who can fight without fear, compassion, regret or pain”. And in 2020, former US Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe accused China of conducting “human testing on members of the People’s Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities. There are no ethical boundaries to Beijing’s pursuit of power,” he wrote in a Wall Street Journal article.
Although China denied the allegation, describing the article as a “miscellany of lies”, a 2019 paper by two US academics stated that China’s military was “actively exploring” techniques like gene editing, exoskeletons and humanmachine collaboration. Could modification of human anatomy and biology produce soldiers able to withstand pain, extreme cold or the need to sleep?
One of the paper’s authors, Elsa
Kania, placed a caveat on John Ratcliffe’s comments, pointing out that while the Chinese military might aspire to create ‘supersoldiers’, such ambitions were restricted by the limitations of what technology was currently capable of achieving: “What is feasible within science does impose a constraint on any actor that is trying to try to push the frontiers.” Ratcliffe had been alleging that Chinese scientists were performing tests on adults. While some characteristics could be altered in adults using gene editing, changing the DNA of embryos offered a more plausible route to the development of ‘super-soldiers’.
Molecular geneticist Dr Helen O’Neill stated that the question was less about whether such technology was already possible, and more about whether scientists would be prepared to use it. “Genome editing and its combination with assisted reproduction are becoming routine practices in transgenics and agriculture,” she explained. “It’s just the combination of the two for human use that is seen as unethical at the moment.” In 2018, a Chinese scientist announced that he had successfully altered the DNA in the embryos of twin girls to prevent them catching HIV. Such gene-editing is banned in most countries, including China, being restricted to discarded IVF embryos, and only if they are destroyed immediately afterwards. The scientist, He
Jiankui, was convicted and sent to prison, the case being regarded as a key moment in bioethics (FT396:26). As well as protecting the twins from HIV, the treatment also brought cognitive enhancements. He Jiankui had used Crispr geneediting technology to engineer specific and precise changes to the DNA within living cells. Some characteristics can be removed, and others added. The potential for being able to treat or even cure inherited diseases is huge. However, Christophe Galichet, senior research scientist at London’s Francis Crick Institute, warned that modification of a single gene wouldn’t simply produce single effects. “If you take a gene,” he said, “you could have an individual with greater muscles or being able to breathe at high altitude. But maybe further down the line the individual will develop cancer.”
Chinese gene modification experiments are seen by some as a response to US explorations in the same area. A 2017 Guardian report claimed that a US military agency was investing tens of millions of dollars on genetic extinction technology with the intention of wiping out invasive species – something UN experts warned could also have military applications. France’s armed forces have also been given approval to develop “enhanced soldiers”. Defence Minister Florence Parly insisted that this research would be undertaken within ethical boundaries, but cautioned that “not everyone shares our scruples and we must be prepared for whatever the future holds.” Nevertheless, the risks it is legally permissible to impose on soldiers are greater than those that civilians can be exposed to. Both China and Russia are reported to have tested COVID-19 vaccines on their troops, and whatever the truth of ‘Gulf War Syndrome’, it’s beyond dispute that Allied soldiers in Iraq in 1991 were given a battery of inoculations without their consent. As Prof Julian Savulescu, an Oxford University specialist in ethics, says: “The military doesn’t exist to promote the interests of the soldier, it exists to gain a strategic advantage or win a war,” adding that it was “difficult to exercise any ethical control or democratic control over how things evolve in the military because, by nature, it involves secrecy and privacy to protect the national interest.”
One of the ethical dilemmas surrounding this research is that the potential benefits have a dual application. For example, exoskeleton research was first aimed at helping or curing people of medical conditions such as paralysis, enabling them to walk again by means of a mindcontrolled exoskeleton, but of course this therapeutic use can easily be weaponised. Dr O’Neill argues that China has already forged ahead in genetic research, while other countries have, as she puts it, “wasted time in ethical arguments, rather than focusing on the reality of the here and the now.” According to her, such countries have placed themselves at a disadvantage, spending “far too much energy… on speculation and dystopia.” Instead, she suggests, “much more energy should be spent on real risks and applying the technology so that we understand it better, because it will be done elsewhere and is being done elsewhere. And it’s only through continued research that we will understand where it may go wrong.” BBC News, 7 Feb 2021.