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During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military plied its servicemen with speed, steroids, and painkillers to help them handle extended combat
Snoek, A. (2015). Among Super Soldiers, Killing Machines and Addicted Soldiers: the Ambivalent Relationship between the Military and (Synthetic) Drugs. In J. Galliott & M. Lotz (Eds.), Super Soldiers (pp. 95–106). Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. In this paper we will analyze several cases from the American Civil War, the two World Wars and the American Vietnam War, and contemporary research in enhancement substance, to determine how drug use can be analyzed and understood in both physical and moral (ethical) terms. This will require a discussion of drug use at different levels. First, we will address the consequences of drug use for the physical and mental sanity of soldiers, during and after wartime, irrespective of the reason for drug use. Second, we will look into the moral questions related to drug use for the enhancement of soldiers, that is, as a method for modern warfare. The moral dimension has at least two different angles: (i) the moral responsibility of superiors administering drugs to their inferiors who are exposed to the rule of full obedience, and (ii) the ethical consequences of enhancement for moral judgment by soldiers in the gray zone between acts of war and war crimes (the difference between the Super soldier and the Killing machine).
The level playing field of competitive sports is an irrelevant concern in asymmetrical warfare. However, there is a common theme of pressure to use performance-enhancing drugs because athletic or military opponents may be using them to advantage. This interest is fueled by personal anecdotes, misconceptions, and myths, and decisions to use or not to use pharmacological interventions may ignore available scientific data. The U.S. Army has led research in this area, with an abundance of published data extending back to World War II. Behavioral effects have been a consistent concern. A key conclusion to be drawn from this research is that although there may be specialized applications for some of these interventions, the majority of soldiers will gain the greatest performance benefits from effective physical and mental training programs combined with good principles of rest and nutrition. Furthermore, the perceived need to improve human biology with drugs may be solving the wrong problem, trying to fit the human to the demands of poorly conceived tactics, tasks, and equipments instead of capitalizing on human capabilities.
Business Law and Ethics: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications
This is the second chapter of two on military human enhancement. In the first chapter, the authors outlined past and present efforts aimed at enhancing the minds and bodies of our warfighters with the broader goal of creating the “super soldiers” of tomorrow, all before exploring a number of distinctions—natural vs. artificial, external vs. internal, enhancement vs. therapy, enhancement vs. disenhancement, and enhancement vs. engineering—that are critical to the definition of military human enhancement and understanding the problems it poses. The chapter then advanced a working definition of enhancement as efforts that aim to “improve performance, appearance, or capability besides what is necessary to achieve, sustain, or restore health.” It then discussed a number of variables that must be taken into consideration when applying this definition in a military context. In this second chapter, drawing on that definition and some of the controversies already mentioned, the authors set o...
Journal of Drug Issues, 1973
PULSE – the Journal of Science and Culture, 2019
In the year 2013, during the 50 th Anniversary of Doctor Who, the title character finally faced the demons of his past that the series had been teasing for almost a decade. In a retrospective reveal the Doctor was depicted as rejecting his eight incarnation in favour of a crueller militaristic version to allow him to battle in the Time War. Previously the heroic benevolent explorer, the character's tenure as the combative 'War Doctor' demanded an identity change that had psychological ramifications for nearly 1300 years across the Doctor's 'final' three regenerations. While fictional, the Doctor's transformation and subsequent trauma are a recurrent aspect of early 20 th century military indoctrination and readjustment. As a result of the First World War, civilian combatants were forced to sacrifice their agency and personal morality to become soldiers. The medicalisation of the body for military purposes was a hallmark of the twentieth century. This article investigates this similarity between fiction and reality in relation to military medicine, and the physical and psychological impacts of such, by comparing popular science fictions such as Doctor Who, Marvel's Captain America, and Joss Whedon's Firefly to the reality of military service, training, and experimentation in the twentieth century.
Global Issues and Ethical Considerations in Human Enhancement Technologies, 2014
1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, 2019
Throughout history, intoxicants were an important part of the war experience. The First World War was by no means an exception in that respect: its main "war drugs" were alcohol (mostly beer, brandy, rum, schnapps, wine, and vodka), morphine, and cocaine. These were both "prescribed" by military authorities and "self-prescribed" by soldiers. As in the past, the reasons for using drugs varied: from purely medical (killing the pain, anesthetizing, and energizing) to performance enhancement, from raising the fighting spirit to alleviating combat trauma, from strengthening bonds between companions to mitigating the fear of battle. Simultaneously and paradoxically, in many states temperance ideas gained in popularity and prohibitionist regulations were adopted.
2019
Throughout history, at times, the politicians, media, and anti-drug activists have constructed the intimidating image of homecoming addicted soldiers as ferocious "others" who would spread narcotic epidemics and threaten the social order. This chapter looks at one of such cases: American soldiers who served in Vietnam were stigmatized as "others" for being excessive drug users. Massive and habitual consumption of drugs during the Vietnam War was contextual and usually did not continue after these soldiers returned home. But some media, politicians, and intellectuals created the myth of the "addicted army" which was used to blame soldiers for the nation's inability to win the war. The Vietnam veterans were victimized; the public began recognizing them as dangerous "Others", as junkies who would spread an epidemic of narcotic use across the United States. What is more, the image of the druggie veteran created a moral panic that was used to i...
Journal of Drug Issues vol. 3, 1973
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