War Without End & Now … The Permanent Soldier
May 18th, 2007
By Rowan Wolf
George Bush told us that the “War on Terrorism” would be a “generational” war. It seems clear that means “war without end” which brings to mind George Orwell’s . (Of course, there are a lot of things about the Bush cabal does that makes Orwell’s book look down right prophetic.) To fight the war without end would normally take a very large fighting force, but long before Rumsfeld’s lean, mean, high tech vision, the Pentagon has been deeply involved in creating future “warfighters.”
Remember the Kurt Russell movie Soldier? In “Soldier” Russell plays a genetically selected interplanetary soldier (war fighter) who get wiped out by a new generation genetically engineered model. Or maybe you remember Jean-Claude Van Damme in Universal Soldier. The theme here is that soldiers who have been killed are “reanimated” and “enhanced” to become a super fighting force. Well, for quite some time the Pentagon has been working on creating the future “warfighter.”
A trip through the public portions of DARPA’s (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), is enlightening. I know that every time I visit, I can’t help but think “If this is what is public, then what are the classified programs?” DARPA has a wide ranging research program on “improving” soldiers. However, DARPA (and indeed DoD “vision” documents) rarely use the term “soldier.” They prefer the term “warfighter.” The goal of many of DARPA’s programs regarding warfighters is to improve them through a variety of means:
- overcome muscle fatigue and lack of sleep;
- directly convert “cellulose” into nutrients (grass and cardboard comes to mind);
- interfacing human and machine as with the HAND program;
- implanting nano-technology for a number of purposes.
Sharon Weinberger over at Wired wrote a fairly extensive article on a project that has gone out to bid colloquially referred to as “Luke’s Binoculars” (though officially known as Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System (CT2WS)). This project involves merging a binocular function with extreme range and “threat detection” into the prefrontal lobe of warfighters’ brains (graphic from Wired below).
The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals.
The most typical neurologic term for functions carried out by the pre-frontal cortex area is Executive Function. Executive Function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social “control” (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes).
Many authors have indicated an integral link between a person’s personality and the functions of the prefrontal cortex. (Wikipedia)
“Luke’s Binoculars” are not some long term, far future, research project. No, the bids have gone out with the goal of having them in use by Special Forces in three (3) years.
Now these projects - including the “binoculars” - seem fairly permanent to me. Once you have modified a warfighter, can they ever not be a warfighter? Do they then become a piece of military equipment? These projects certainly give the name “GI” (Government Issue) a whole new level of significance.
Are we really willing to commit people for life (not retirement) to be extended military equipment? Certainly the government seems willing to do so. Do we need permanent warfighters to fight a never ending war? Might such “enhanced” humans be useful in other areas besides war? Or might the technologies have uses beyond the military? I can think of a number of them actually. For example,workers that don’t need to rest and can eat the recycling to keep going. Of course, much like the warfighter, the worker must become property as well - another resource of service until removed from service - sort of a high tech version of by Max Barry.
The implications of the direction being forged are into a future that I, personally, find terrifying. I can’t believe that we must be on this path. I must believe that we can, and will see the travesty we are becoming and turn aside.
Entry Filed under: NEGATIVE SPACE, FICTIONAL FREEDOM
5 Comments Add your own
1. phil gallagh | May 18th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Amazing how pop culture often prefigures life—at least in the US— which is of all nations the most cartoonish in its everyday cultural forms. I’m referring of course to the Terminator movies, in which precisely this type of semi or fully robotic warrior (amoral and bred for combat) enters the fray. A similar, but much more intriguing visualization of the same was given in Blade Runner. Who can ever forget the band of desperate “replicants” bent on discovering the secret of their artificial mortality…and led by a most seductive “combat model” masterfully played by Rutger Hauer? Thanks for such a vital and thought-provoking article.
2. Rowan Wolf | May 18th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
The question I have regarding pop culture is whether the DoD and CIA get their ideas from SciFi, or whether the word leaks out (or is planted. After all, with the string of such movies over the years, will that lessen people’s response to the “real thing?”
3. phil gallagh | May 19th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
You pose an excellent question. There is little doubt that everyone—in and out of uniform—is influenced by the larger culture…it permeates everyone’s mind, so it is not entirely far-fetched to think that some scientists or military planners have asked for weapons along such lines as those encountered in sci-fi. Why not? As to whether such developments will inure people to the real thing, when it comes around, that’s another big unknown. What is probably true is that as long as we have wars and class-divided societies there will be those who seek the “ultimate weapon,” and the breeding of combat robots—military androids— sounds to many like an ideal solution.
I am certain that as science allows us to install more and more “machine parts” in humans, first as prostheses and later on as at-birth “enhancements” (I’m thinking here that nanotech will eventually allow us/them to implant a whole computer in someone’s tooth, for example), we will be entering a very very strange, even bizarre moral and ethical frontier where everything becomes blurred. What will be the “rights” of a creature that is, say, 65% machine and only 35% human? Philip Kindred Dick was a true visionary, when you really think about it.
4. Gary Corseri | May 19th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Oh, come on, guys, look on the bright side! Now when we get our chicken nuggets from KFC–mostly corn products, anyway–we can eat the cardboard box they come in, too! Munch, munch, yum, yum! No messy clean-up–and spicy-flavored cellulose!
Getting back from a hard day sweeping the aisles at Wal-Mart, we adjust our prefrontal-lobe binoculars so we can spy on our neighbor and earn a few bucks at our second job for Homeland Security. Sure ’nuff, we catch him just as he’s pulling out an old album of Cat Stevens’ “Tea for the Tillerman”!
The boys and girls at DARPA will probably figure out how to keep us going day and night, without sleep, which is dandy since we’ll be spending a lot of time bicycling everywhere cause who the hell can afford gas, anyway?
But, seriously, Rowan, Phil–thanks for alerting the folks to what’s cooking in the nefarious kitchens. And I totally agree: we’d better keep our eyes on the popular culture, too, to see what subcutaneous fears keep driving the electorate to follow and annoint our doomsday-minded “leaders.”
In a recent article, Carolyn Baker writes about “Embracing Collapse”–not in a Falwellian way, as we’re transported–naked, no less!–into the angelic-halleluja choirs; but, wisely, alert to what is unfolding; preparing ourselves for the catastrophes of Peak Oil, Economic Depression, Climate Change and Endless War. Preparing ourselves and forging alliances with those who share alternative visions of community, peace and cooperation.
Along these lines–getting prepared, staying alert– NBC news has recently introduced a new feature they call, “The World in 2017.” Delights to anticpate? An implanted micro-chip with your complete medical history!
Think of it: If you happen to be standing on the periphery of a terrorist bombing ten years hence, you’ll be wheeled into the Emergency Room and quickly scanned for a record of your medications, allergies, etc. Then, assuming the scan reveals that your health insurance is paid up and you’ve got coverage for peripheral bomb damage, you’re in the clear!
And they can probably get your dental records, library records, internet-viewing records, and arguments with your no-good terrorist neighbor all on that same little microchip!
Ain’t life grand?
Thanks–
5. Rowan Wolf | May 19th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
We may need to be eating the KFC box with the way things are going. Think about all the landfills we have filled in the US. That could be a prime food supply - with a little tinkering. There would be a kind of divine justice in that I guess.
The RealID issue is huge. Which requires the HUGE data storage area the government is filling in Colorado Springs.
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