Just two weeks after announcing that China is developing a biologically enhanced super soldier, France has joined the ranks of nations creating troops "bred to kill," according to a new report.
Last week, France also gave the green light to "augmented" soldiers and some fear the super soldier could be standard in the near future.
The French seek to improve the “physical, cognitive, perceptual and psychological” capabilities of soldiers. The ministry's research includes drugs to keep troops awake for long periods of time to combat stress, and even surgeries to improve hearing.
Nothing new under the sun. The Nazi troops were pumped full of Pervitin, a synthetic amphetamine that allowed them to take France in just three days, without sleeping or stopping. Today this form of "doping" simply raises the bar, and brings the super soldier to the biological level.
Homo robocopus
The new species of enhanced super soldier could make use of not only robotics or super uniforms (like the Ratnik-3 of the Russian army), but even to DNA modifications to acquire greater speed and strength.
michael clarke, professor of war studies at Kings College London (KCL), is certain of this. “We've reached the point where we could potentially manipulate people's DNA to generate extra strength, endurance and other things in them just like we do with animals,” he says of super soldiers in an interview with The Sun. “Just as it was done to select and enhance livestock, it can now be done very precisely with humans.”
Super soldier: it's human arms race.
Clarke added that super soldier research is being fueled internationally because of fears about the Chinese program.
“What everyone fears could happen in 30 years, given another 10 years of development and testing,” Clarke continues. “In 30 years the Chinese could count on troops of 20-year-old super soldiers with particular characteristics also selected through genetic engineering”.
Machines in flesh and blood
A recent relationship of the International Society for Military Ethics in Europe hypothesizes among the scenarios the almost dystopian one which involves the use of bionic men capable of fighting "all the time".
“The enhanced super soldier would be reduced to a bionic man who runs faster, sleeps, eats and drinks less, and can fight continuously,” the report states.
Sir Lawrence Freedman, professor of war studies at KCL, maintains that robotics will have the greatest weight in this context. “Today's prosthetics allow what we would once have called invalids to safely resume combat. There are new technologies, augmented reality tools and many things that make soldiers much more effective than they were in the past. And technology is getting everyone used to managing military assets as largely sacrificial, including killer drones, autonomous vehicles and so on.”
Although the French government claims that human rights will be respected in pursuing these results, the minister of the French armed forces Florence Parly he warned: “we need to be clear about the super soldier. Not everyone has the same scruples as us, and we must prepare for such a future."
Some super soldier technologies
It is worth listing them, if only for future reference.
Brain microchips: France was given the opportunity to develop microchips to increase the capabilities of soldiers' brains.
Bionic eyes: under development in Hong Kong, offers users infrared and night vision.
Super hearing: among the US tactical communication and protection systems there are intelligent earphones that increase soldiers' hearing in an almost superhuman way.
Medical implants: la DARPA, the Pentagon's research arm, is developing cyborg implants to monitor combat efficiency.
Improved limbs: A Devcom report revealed plans to equip US super soldiers with improved limbs for increased strength.
Exoskeletons: The US Army has tested an exoskeleton that can be attached to the legs of super soldiers and increase their productivity up to 27 times.
Synthetic blood: Il Respirocyte it's a special "red blood cell" that could help super soldiers keep from running out of breath underwater for hours.
Pain immunity: the initiative for years Persistence in Combat of DARPA aims to allow soldiers, among other things, to suppress pain for 30 days.
