NATO STO

The increasing complexity of military systems upon which operational success relies presents increasing demands and challenges upon military personnel, both physically, cognitively and mentally (including emotionally). In order to guarantee successful military operations in the future, it is essential to make the military smarter, stronger and more capable. The application of new and/or well-established technologies offer opportunities to artificially increase the performance, endurance and survivability of soldiers when they have to operate in demanding environments, prevent out-of-duty and accelerate return-to-duty after injury or overload. In general, this endeavor to improve human capabilities by ‘artificial’ and ‘normal’ means is called ‘human enhancement’ (HE). There are numerous ongoing human enhancement initiatives initiated in diverse NATO partner countries; also, several relevant reports have been issued, such as: NIAG SG.253 Assessment of Human Augmentation Technologies for Exploitation in the Battlefield (2021), NATO’s Science & Technology Trends 2020-2040 document (2020), HFM-335’s report on Biotechnology, Human Enhancement & Human Augmentation: A Comprehensive Overview of Its Topical Content, as well as the discussion of NATO’s Science and Technology Board on Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (2020). These current insights are based on the results derived from more than a dozen explorative NATO research groups or observations of HE industries, respectively. As such, this RTG proposal is a follow-up to HFM-ST-335-A. Given that considerable effort has already been devoted to scoping the HE field in previous activities, it is proposed to directly start as RTG instead of preceding it with an ET. As there are many HE initiatives in different countries, with the purpose to develop, apply and/or test new and/or the combination of established HE technologies, this RTG offers an opportunity for military commanders and researchers, policy makers and engineers to share their experience in order to improve or enrich their current effort. It will also help NATO to determine the most effective and achievable methods and applications. Recent national HE initiatives span between the application of combined ‘low-hanging-fruit’ HE technologies and testing highly artificial pharmaceuticals, hardware- and biotechnologies. An example of a low-hanging-fruit intervention is the application of personalized, task specific, well-timed and well-portioned higher quality nutrition with optimized measures of rest and recovery before, during, and after demanding education and training exercises to enhance physical and mental performance and to prevent attrition (i.e., Human Performance Optimization). An example of an intervention using highly artificial technologies is the application of the medication ‘Modafinil’ and/or ‘repetitive magnetic transcranial stimulation’ to enhance cognitive performance in a context when alertness, situational awareness and decision making are key for mission success (i.e., Human Performance Enhancement). This initiative may also include focus on current or future research on minimal and maximal abilities- and performance levels, and hence, focusing on greater diversity in the human component to expand the potential recruitment pool to include people with lower basic and/or standard abilities which may be possible to correct/overcome by novel application of biotechnologies and Human Performance Augmentation.