Are Super Soldiers Possible?

Thom Poole, BBC News: The myth and reality of the super soldier 

Is China trying to make its own version of Captain America? US intelligence has suggested so. 

But beyond the hype, the possibility of a super soldier is not so outlandish and one that not just China is interested in. 

 With deep pockets, and a desire to get an edge, the world's militaries have often driven technological innovation, from the state-of-the-art to the humble. 

Take duct tape. It was the result of a suggestion from an Illinois ordnance factory worker, who had sons serving in the navy during World War Two. Worried about soldiers under fire fumbling with the flimsy paper tape then used to seal ammunition boxes, Vesta Stoudt had a solution - a waterproof, cloth tape. She was unable to win the support of her supervisors, but was more successful when she wrote to President Roosevelt, who instructed war producers to turn her idea into reality. 

If military necessity can give us better sticky tape, what else might it do? 

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WNU Editor: China appears to be the most dedicated to producing such soldiers .... China has done human testing to create biologically enhanced super soldiers, says top U.S. official (NBC).

US Intelligence Is Saying That China Is Conducting Biological Tests To Create Super Soldiers

Chinese servicemen compete at the 2020 International Army Games in Russia. Photograph: Vladimir Smirnov/Tass 

NBC: China has done human testing to create biologically enhanced super soldiers, says top U.S. official 

U.S. intelligence agencies didn't immediately respond to requests for comment about whether China seeks super soldiers like those in such films as "Captain America." 

WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence shows that China has conducted "human testing" on members of the People's Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with "biologically enhanced capabilities," the top U.S. intelligence official said Friday. 

John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, included the explosive claim in a long Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he made the case that China poses the pre-eminent national security threat to the U.S. 

"There are no ethical boundaries to Beijing's pursuit of power," wrote Ratcliffe, a Republican former member of Congress from Texas. 

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WNU Editor: China has been pursuing the science of developing "super soldiers" for a long time .... Weaponizing Biotech: How China's Military Is Preparing for a 'New Domain of Warfare' (Defense One). 

 More News On US Intelligence Saying That China Is Conducting Biological Tests To Create Super Soldiers 

China conducting biological tests to create super soldiers, US spy chief says -- The Guardian 

Is China Using CRISPR to Create Super Soldiers? -- Biospace 

US Official Claims China is Testing Biological Enhanced Supersoldiers -- Futurism 

China Could Be Developing Super Soldiers Like Marvel's Captain America, US Intel Reveals -- International Business Times 

China is making SUPER SOLDIERS and is ‘national security threat #1,’ US spy chief claims in media blitz -- RT

Trump’s spy chief says China working on ‘super soldiers’ -- Asia Times

Is Russia Creating Super-Soldiers?

RCD: Is Russia Creating A Nazi-Style Army of Genetic Supersoldiers?

That sounds terrifying.

Want to be a Russian paratrooper or tank commander? Then you’d better hope you have the right genes.

The Russian military will be assigning soldiers based on their “genetic passports.”

“The project is far-reaching, scientific, fundamental,” Alexander Sergeyev, the chief of Russia’s Academy of Sciences, told Russian news agency TASS (English translation here). “Its essence is to find such genetic predispositions among military personnel, which will allow them to be properly oriented according to military specialties.”

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WNU Editor:We are definitely entering a new brave world.

To Create A 'Super Soldier', These Are The 8 Technologies That The Pentagon Is Pursuing

Department of Defense

Logan Nye, Scout Warrior: New Future Soldier Power-Up Technology

Key emerging technologies being pursued by the US military

A US Marine pulls security near a poppy field in Peyo as Marines and Afghan soldiers patrol through the village in the Bala Baluk district in Afghanistan's Farah province, March 29, 2010.Staff Sgt. Nicholas Pilch via Wikimedia Commons

As Captain America and Iron Man prepare for their civil war, they probably don’t realize they have competition coming from the US military. The Department of Defense wants troops with super strength, telepathy, and immunity from pain. Here are 8 technologies the Pentagon is pursuing to create super soldie

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WNU Editor: I am not sure about telepathy and giving up on sleep .... but the other 6 technologies seem feasible.

The U.S. Military Wants Super Soldiers

Patrick Tucker, Defense One: Tomorrow Soldier: How The Military Is Altering the Limits of Human Performance

Breakthroughs in biometric science mean future troops will fight with weapons that understand them — inside and out.

Imagine a group of volunteers, their chests rigged with biophysical sensors, preparing for a mission in a military office building outfitted with cameras and microphones to capture everything they do. “We want to set up a living laboratory where we can actually pervasively sense people, continuously, for a long period of time. The goal is to do our best to quantify the person, the environment, and how the person is behaving in the environment,” Justin Brooks, a scientist at the Army Research Lab, or ARL, told me last year.

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WNU Editor: This is probably going to happen sooner rather than later.

The Ethics of Developing Super Soldiers

Soldiers of the future may be biologically or technologically enhanced — but at what cost? Reuters: Ho New

Adam Henschke, The Conversation: Stronger, faster and more deadly: The ethics of developing supersoldiers

Enhancing a soldier's capacity to fight is nothing new.

Arguably one of the first forms of enhancement was through improving their diet. The phrase "an army marches on its stomach" goes back at least to Napoleon, and speaks to the belief that being well fed enhances the soldier's chances of winning a battle.

But recent research has gone well beyond diet to enhance the capabilities of soldiers, like purposefully altering the structure and function of soldiers' digestive system to enable them to digest cellulose, meaning they can use grass as a food.

Perhaps their cognitive capabilities could be substantially altered so they can make more rapid decisions during conflict.

Or their sensitivity to pain could be diminished, or even the severity and likelihood of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reduced.

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WNU Editor: We are still far away from developing such soldiers .... but it looks like the conversation is now beginning.

Super Soldiers And Beyond

The current state of the art in soldier-based technology, with body armor, communications helmet and blast goggles. FOX News/U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center

From Discovery:

The military’s most farseeing agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, required the services of Eleventh Hour’s Jacob Hood in last night’s episode to figure who violently killed some test-chimps and a veterinarian in the agency’s super soldier program. It seems a mad scientist had found some way to increase the size of a human amygdala, which led the soldier to have extreme, and unthinking, fight-or-flight reactions. Whenever someone approached this super soldier in a threatening way, he reacted with extreme prejudice. Naturally, the mad scientist wasn’t supposed to be testing on people, which is why by the end of the show he was off to prison.

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