Military Review English Edition January-February 2015 | Page 98

engineering, neurobiological augmentation, and specialization prevent demobilizing soldiers at the end of
conflict? How will enhanced soldiers affect their unit’s
tactical performance? What additional challenges will
be created for their units?

Tactical-Level Ethical Factors with
Second- and Third-Order Effects

approaches may prevent soldiers from experiencing combat fatigue. Medication may reduce physiological responses to stress, such as heart palpitations, trembling, and sweating. Such medication
could result in soldiers having less than normal
fear during combat.
If two soldiers are wounded, one normal and one
enhanced, will the enhanced soldier receive priority
based on the value of the enhancements and the probability of survival? Will combat medics need additional
training to treat enhanced soldiers?
What are the ethics of fighting an enemy enhanced soldier? Will the Geneva Conventions and
the other conventions apply? What if an enhanced
enemy soldier carries a biological threat in his bloodstream? What type of enemy prisoner of war facilities

What are some of the effects that enhanced
soldiers may bring to tactical operations? As an
example, will enhanced and unenhanced soldiers
serve in the same units? Will enhanced soldiers be
in their own elite units? How will their employment affect unit cohesion and morale? How will
training standards be governed with enhanced
and normal soldiers? Could a normal officer lead
enhanced enlisted soldiers effectively?
Would enhanced soldiers rush into
riskier situations when their normal
counterparts would not? As both an
investment and potential benefit to
the individual warfighters, should
enhanced soldiers be treated differently from the unenhanced, such as
on length of service and promotion
requirements? Would preferential
treatment to any particular group
lower overall troop morale?
If an enhanced soldier’s behavior
goes out of control and violates the
laws of war, who is at fault? Who is
responsible? Is it the soldier, the combat leader, or the medical team that
created him? Do the laws of war need
to be modified to account for enhanced
soldiers? Will enemy forces be reluctant to take our enhanced soldiers as
prisoners? Will enhanced soldiers be
targets for capture to reverse engineer
biological or neural implants?
In combat, will enhanced soldiers
be tasked with more dangerous missions than others? Will they be the
permanent point man on patrol? Will
normal soldiers shun the enhanced
(Photo courtesy of DARPA Staff)
soldiers whose personalities have
been modified? For instance, new
An exoskeleton in development at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
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January-February 2015  MILITARY REVIEW