And author of several books, his most recent one called military neuroscience and becoming age of narrow warfare. Hes got expertise in International Affairs and National Security professor. Thank you. So much for joining us today. First, tell us a little bit about your book, military neuro science and the coming age of neuro warfare. Whats it about . What prompted you to delve into this topic . Well, its about motor applications of neuro science and you of Human Performance enhancement, as well as Human Performance. The good great, the good vision. And also in terms of the use for intelligence and things like a in determining whether somebodys says the truth or not. And so there are many different applications that on National Security relevant and yeah, my or just not interesting topic 10 because of my earlier work. Im not talking this Weapon Systems. So i found that Artificial Intelligence research relates strongly to austin, nor science research. So i think the Intelligence Research has tried to build enough that this will brain, that this model on the human brain. And thats why the 2 pos overlap. So lets go beyond psychological warfare. Cy, off or, or even the information war we have now entered the age of what many would colloquially call body hacking, or what the pentagon calls Synthetic Biology research. One of many darpa projects right now is called n 3 next generation non surgical Neuro Technology program. It aims to provide soldiers with bi directional brain machine interfaces which they called b, c i. So in brief, basically i would enable neuro pathways to communicate with external devices via an implant that talks to an external receptor. So in theory, the person can control like a swarm of drones just by bought rather than by computer. How and, and why would this be a desirable application for the military . Make sure it has been interested in brand computer enterprise systems, the least amount in the sixtys. The dont idea is to combine the high cognitive abilities of the human brain. Thats the response times of machines. So by perry, a human brain, with a machine or a Weapon System, you can get the best of the 2 words. And thats the reason why the military wants it. And yeah, they have been working on different approaches to do that. So one approach was a project called deep brain stimulation. So thats the top of project from 2013, which requires and then basic approaches. So you have to drill holes into the brain to insert some implant into the brain. And that can be used for um, doing things like that therapy to take so you could relieve stress or pain. So it has been used on notary veterans who have a medical conditions. And obviously you could develop that folder in terms of using it for 4th grade. Computers into phase a, so where you have a seamless connection between the human brain and the computers so you could allow them to control a computer or a machine by thought. So that is quite powerful. And yeah, but they are now trying to do is to have a non Invasive Technology which can perform a list of some but a better them, but they have already. So whether youre using is e g a, but theyre looking at Something Better than you g. And again, adopt would be very practical if you put that into some kind of helmet like device. So you dont have to permanently modify your soldiers and you dont have to take a huge medical risk that comes with that. So, so that was kind of the context why theyre trying to do it. Assign just called robert free test, who is a Nano Technology research or at the institute for molecular manufacturing has been working on artificial red blood cells called respirators sites. He says these nano machines would give humans the ability to quote, hold their breath at the bottom of a Swimming Pool for hours, or let someone sprint at top speed for at least 15 minutes without stopping to breathe. How might this be applied to both the soldiers on the battlefield . May of course you would like to have soldiers swears great to endurance. We have great districts who can perform at the peak level for an extended period of time, who dont need to sleep much or dont need to eat and high. Yeah. Anything thats kind of accomplish that is obviously desirable approach is called nano medicine. So you can inject nano particles or nano bought into the body in order to achieve some performance enhancement. Also understand that its related to improving the oxygen uptake in the blood. And that allows you to have great on yours and to cope the fall as oxygen in the environment so so that is quite the a real and i think its a new term kind of capability to we have a so that we can use now medicine in order to have some performance enhancement, especially as a concerns of things back the oxygen uptake. I mean that has been a technique in doping for quite some time. Um so, so obviously not about themselves. Um, well, how about that . Because uh like um, the one that describes, it broke, it frightens us. So i dont know when that will be a reality. And biotech is a massive field, an estimated 421000000000. 00 in 2022 alone according to the t stuff. Its generally defined as the use of biological systems or living organisms to develop its products, sometimes called biologics. Meanwhile, the former us director of National Intelligence, john radcliff, accused china of going one step further in biotech. He said china was using chris for technology to alter human genetics in order to create a physically superior soldier without offering any evidence. Mind you, if we entertain the idea that this is actually happening suspending any ethical arguments given how costly a crisper program would be, is this concept even feasible . And what does it take decades to develop an army of super humans . Well, i dont think they are necessarily looking at this time a truman genetic engineering. So thats what the to design is showing soldier from scratch. So you would have to work with the human embryos. And you would try to combine human dna eve of some other. But actually animal dna to create a totally new type of organ as a. Uh, so obviously that would take a long time. So you would need 18 to 20 years to grow your soldiers. But i dont think that this is commonly the issue as of what you can do is gene therapy or gene doping. So you can connect gene expression. So you can activate or deactivate genes. And that can be used for how many performance enhancement to adapt as an existing kind of technology. You can do it with a zeros injections as we can potentially insert some new genes into the body as well into something organs. And yeah, its quite possible that the Chinese Military is already working in this and that the us luxury is also considering that very seriously. Of course, the technology can be generally used for modify, any time to fill out the organism, including plans and also animals. So you dont have to necessarily, necessarily go to 2 minutes for that. And yeah, according to james clapper, who was a director of National Intelligence before radcliffe. And so, as you suggested in 2016, the chris but technology is low cost and easy and difficult amounts to a weapon of mass destruction if it was of use a. So we would be talking about potentially modifying plants or animals and doing it in a malicious way, in order to cause this function where you could have uh organisms self destruct. Uh so that is a very dangerous kind of technology because once you release something into the environment, its very difficult to take it back and then you can combine it with a gene ross. So you could totally modify an existing species of compound that would be is very dangerous, as of what they are currently considering is working with most details. So genetically modified the most teachers, and they can be used for delivering some north talks and or some biological agent. So, so that is a much one year term for us. All right, coming up next to has soldier, body hacking, actually existed for a millennia. Well discuss it when we return with professor arman christian in sit tight. The ammo will be right back. The take a fresh look around his life. Kaleidoscopic isnt just a shifted reality distortion by power to vision with no real opinions pictures designed to simplify. It will confuse who really wants a better wills, and is it just because it shows you fractured images, presented to this, but can you see through their illusion going underground can of the, in 1881 began to expand its property in north africa. France decided to attack and easy. The invasion began with a bump bartman of the french fleet on coastal cities, and was followed by standing in the ground through the french easily occupied one of the key city. Please eric and the bay of doing this bomb at the 3rd us deep agreed to humiliating negotiations. The bartow trade, he concluded with a colonialist, establishing a project to rid of france, overton easy. However, the people up to an easy, i would not surrender to the enemy. At the call of the islamic clergy, the doing easy is rose to a holy war against the invaders. The soldiers of the bays army also joined the resistance. The branch groups did not get an easy walk. Vieira patriots bought desperately, but failed to defeat the huge and well armed army, which was supported by the strongest sleep. Within a year, the rebels where defeated. This turned out to be a real tragedy for the country. About one 7th of the population together with the fighters left for neighbouring libya. Thousands of people died during the warfare. The french flag was raised over to an easy. The colonial authorities tried to deprive the country of its air of identity and populated with european settling such an easy instead now brought up with the loss of freedom era. Patriots had been fighting against french colonialism for decades, and delta in easier game the independence in 1956. The buys administration in nature world or us navy with soft power and rhetorical ships. Remember, ukraine will wind and ukraine is winning. Now we hear rush, it is loosing and even brushes last narrative. Manipulations do not change hard. We all the welcome back to the m. O i manila chance with the advancement of a i systems on the battlefield. Does that necessarily mean we are working towards bloodless wars . A back to discuss is professor arman christian and thank you for staying with us professor. Now, despite many of these discussions around crisper and china is alleged experimentation, not much talked about in the us is this thing called space genes program, which sounds to me a lot like what chris per technology does. Now from their website under darpa, it says this quote, the safe janes Program Supports force protection and military health and readiness by protecting Service Members from accidental or intentional misuse of geno editing technologies. Additional work will leverage advances in Gene Editing Technology to expedite the development of advanced prophylactic and therapeutic treatments against gene editors. Advances within the program will ensure the United States remains at the vanguard of the broadly accessible and rapidly progressing field of g no editing. Then they go on to say overall, the safe Trans Program is creating a layered, modular, and Adaptable Solutions set to protect war fighters in the homeland against intentional or accidental misuse. G, no editing technologies prevent and or reverse on wanting genetic changes in a given biological system. Facilitate the development of safe, precise, and effective medical treatment that use gene editors. All right, professor. Given the enhancement and use of drones and other non human tack on the battlefield. Why bother with trying to alter human soldiers . Why not continued the advancement of fully robotic warriors . I mean, why cant we take humans off the battlefield entirely . No, its some of the argument to say, we dont need to. And soldiers because they have nuclear weapons. As i said, they were present totally different capabilities. So machines can do certain things better than humans, but humans can also do a lot of things much better than machines. And so we need both types of capabilities. We cannot simply invest in just one type of capability and ignore or the other kinds of or took abilities that might be needed. So there are certain circumstances where machines could easily or performed humans. So for example, for space weapons or putting a deep sea nissan off environments that are very suitable for insurance. But that could be a very suitable for autonomy was Weapon Systems. At the same time, if you will have to operate in a human environment such as in a city where you have civilians around. Its probably not the best option to rely on autonomous Weapon Systems for that. The risks of some to talk to great and or the a, i show some promise about also some very substantial and inherent problems with e. I. And so for example, yeah, i realize nor networks that loan by themselves. So nobody knows how they evolved over time. And so you can simply put an economist, Weapon System in the field and hope for the best. You never know how it would respond in a new type of situation. And obviously any adversary would try to click into doing something stupid. So does account. They are. So you might be able to manipulate the Data Collection of the eyes system. And deb, id distort the, the eyes Decision Making and even fix the i to attack on forces or civilians. Assume i dont think you can do away with humans. So just a, i dont think that was a feasible on that note as, as youre just sort of alluded to there, do you ever foresee a future where of war, where there are no human casualties, you know, both soldiers or civilian. What would be the part of that . The ward is defined as an axle for us to compare what you need to do. Oh, well, so you cannot have a war where you do not inflict some sort of pain on the enemy or causing some financial or mature. The damage is not enough. Im assuming this was fight and they both need to feel pain in order to stop fighting. And i dont think that it is, uh, it makes sense to have a ward, it was entirely for by machines. And so that would always be some human participation. And more at the very least, humans would be participating as collateral damage. So you will never be able to eliminate that kind of risk. And the only way you could have a bloodless war would be some sort of normal diesel or technology that could mentally course on mind control and, and then the population. So that is a very scary possibility, but luckily its not in the near future. How long do you think countries have actually been genetically, or at least chemically altering soldiers without the public knowing . Well, im in that has always been an interest in genetic to improving your soldiers. I mean that the most basic technique is eugenics and breeding. So that is an idea that goes back to the ancient times of the greek philosopher. The title was suggested to the debt and this has been also implemented in modern times. If you think of the s s Reading Program course in the evenings form. So that has been going on for a long time that you want to select the type of soldiers who have the best genetic conditions for the task. And yeah, we have not the technology to do the Genetic Screening. So we would be able to select people for certain jobs and i think that is potentially already happening. So we are not always informed about these kinds of things, but the, the technology for Genetic Screening is this. The next step would be genetically modified so that the start of gene therapy and other types of enhancement. And yeah, the trucks are obviously a part of it. So soldiers have taken drugs for a long time. Um, in order to get that the performance and comment im to yeah, thats just the reality of war and war to such an extreme situation that you need to overcome a lots of physical and mental challenges and anything that helps you with that such as performance enhancing drugs are obviously a good thing for the military and for historical context. Would you consider that this has actually been done for centuries . Maybe a millennia, even. I mean, take, for example, the fact that the vikings were known to eat psychedelic mushrooms, were talking about trimmings here. Before some of the raids that they conducted or not the soldiers had been known to used you to use mass to be able to fight on and march longer. Couldnt these be considered a form of body hacking for soldiers . Yeah, its a very established method of Human Performance enhancement. And obviously, notions have used it for a long time. And the person i mean, was giving the soldiers cocaine in the 19th century. And so that goes back a long time. And obviously you have no synthetic drugs like math, im settlement that was used by them often in the 2nd world war. And also was use the logic stand by the American Military in vietnam. So that is not something unusual. Obviously you have some downsize that comes to drugs so you can get a highly irrational, unpredictable behavior as a result of those drug stores, the risk of addiction and asterisk, of other kinds of Health Damage that follows from this. So the use of drugs is not ideal. Um, but its a, its a reality more do you think the automated Weapon Systems are a competitor to the concept of genetically altered super, so builders and, and that with the success of a guy and autonomous weapons that this field of research will drop out of the limelight and not receive as much funding in the future. I dont see that happening at all. I think the potential for your husband is exaggerated a lot, especially recently. So there are lots of downsides to a. I dont think that you can get rid of the human on the battlefield. Whats the use motor is trying to do is to pair soldiers with, from semi autonomous machines. So you would have soldiers directing a set of drones or other types of robots that would assist the soldier in the task. So. So that is clearly not something that they would prefer to the possibility of just putting in the autonomy of system into the field. And then hoping that it does the job as intended. So you might have a big problem with controlling autonomous Weapon Systems. So if youre dealing with no networks and they might be able to develop the capability of circumventing certain programming, and then you might use control over those machines that doesnt amount to the front of the machine becoming self aware and fighting against humanity. But it can result in the machine doing something really stupid, and that kind of have very serious consequences. So you have to consider that autonomous Weapon Systems have extremely Fast Response funds. So when something goes wrong, it might be too late for a human to effectively intervene and in that, and you might get some knock on effects that are uncontrollable. So the machine much destroyed a satellite and space and it might be an Early Warning sort a lot. The other side might consider the that is the start of going out to dinner and much launch know to weapons. So that is something that is a real in a very scary possibility as laughing fee to look for ways of ensuring that theres sufficient human control over those machines. I dont think it is a viable or reasonable option to let those machines just operate by themselves. Youll need to have humans that are nearby and that can potentially intervene in that. If something goes wrong. Professor arman christian and author of the book, military neuroscience and the coming age of narrow warfare. Thank you so much for that informative. And if im being honest, truly frightening conversation, thank you. All right, thats going to do it for this episode of modus operandi the show that dig deep into Foreign Policy and current affairs. Im your host manila. Chad. Thank you so much for tuning in. Well see you again. Next time to figure out the, the at the end of the 18th century, britain began by illegal opium, afraid in china. These hard drugs causing addiction and literally destroying the human body became a gold mine for business men from the foggy l. B on, however, the ruling chinese ging dynastee tried to resist and to stop the illegal trade which provoked the wrath of the London Business community. In 1840 without a declaration of war, the english fleet began to seize and plunder chinese coastal boards. The barley arm denmoore, lead, train, chinese army, was unable to provide adequate resistance. The jing empire was forced to hand hong, gone over to england and open its boards for trading. The little village, in 1856, france and the United States joined in the robbery of china. The anglo french troops defeated the chinese occupied basing, and committed an unprecedented robbery. Destroyed and blundered the wealth of the un mean you one palace. The defeat of the jing dynasty and the do obie and wars fled to the transformation of the celestial empire into a semi colony of european states. And started the age of humiliation. And the sale of opium took on collazo proportions and led to the horrible depths of millions of ordinary chinese the l. Look forward to talking to you all. That technology should work for people. A robot must obey the orders given by human beings, except were so shorter is that conflict with the 1st law show your mind, anticipation. We should be very careful about our personal intelligence at the point, obviously is to place trust rather than fit the various jobs. I mean, with the Artificial Intelligence, we have so many the of the robot must protect this phone existence was alexis, the in a c 90 age. You know, i look forward to it because it became a us colony that still retained its own cultural identity and speak in favor of independence. We be thrown into prison today, close to health. Its population lived in, grow the residence. Of course, a retail have new representation in congress and con, booked and us president ial elections. Like okay, were going to make you american citizens, which you didnt ask for, even if we were offered citizenship that we would prefer like once again, it was in his twenties. He chose defiance that hes homelands independent. We felt that we could generate more of a spirit of resist, rather than of submissive except our reality. And we fell asleep, shot into the im sorry that i decided to fight for my country. No, im not. Good. I have done things differently. Yes. Do i now think that violence is not the means to achieve anything . Absolutely. Of 196, the us as i was returning to peaceful life with the newspapers, didnt report ongoing massacres and the ukranian saw, according to intelligence ukrainian nationalist and the ukrainian insurgent ami said by real mind shall give each the joy to these atrocities. For future was the best hold at the old school and what, but i senior to sell school knew what to do. I to be like this is of course well do a new one. Obviously the plaintiff was the head of the n k v. D, sabotage department at the time, he was tasked with stopping the atrocities in ukraine for good reason, general sort of blonde. It was very familiar with the situation. He had experience finding the nationalist before the war loveless to contend at z a do it to made a sudden