Mind Wars by Jonathan D Moreno – review

How the military want to control our brains
Steven Rose
The Guardian, Friday 1 June 2012

Science long ago struck its Faustian bargain with the military. From Archimedes and Leonardo to the physicists of the Manhattan project, Vietnam's electronic battlefield and the computer-controlled drones over Afghanistan, the lineage is well known. Now it is the turn of the neurosciences to be recruited into the asymmetric wars of the 21st century.

The new brain sciences offer methods to enhance the fighting capabilities of one's own troops (war-fighters, in today's military jargon) and to degrade those of the enemy. The technologies range from the biochemical to the electro-magnetic. They promise novel methods of surveillance and intelligence gathering – not just in traditional war zones abroad but also in controlling an unruly citizenry at home. A line once drawn between the military and the police is being redrawn as wars abroad return in the form of urban terrorism and riot to haunt the heartlands of the old imperial powers.

A central player is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), which for decades has funded military research projects straddling the borderline between practicability and science fiction. Darpa's activities have been followed for much of this period by Jonathan Moreno, bioethicist and historian, who has been in the privileged insider/outsider position that gives him both access and freedom to comment. His new book, Mind Wars, updates his earlier accounts of the military's wars on the mind to bring us chilling news of Darpa's latest projects.

Asked to suggest military priorities for brain research, the US National Research Council pressed for the development of improved cognitive enhancers to add to the existing drugs. Might it be possible to enhance intelligence by tapping directly into the brain? Smart soldiers for the age of smart weaponry? How about a helmet incorporating a hairnet of electrodes to read off the brain's electrical activity? Or a brain-computer interface to "analyse intelligence information, improve motivation and accelerate learning", as well as a warfighter's ability to "detect and identify threats rapidly and at a distance"? Similar interfaces might enable soldiers brain-damaged or paralysed after a roadside bomb explosion to recover some function, coupling the brain's electrical activity to the movement of a prosthetic limb. One Darpa project seeks to restore memory loss in brain-injured soldiers by bypassing the damaged brain regions via computer inputs. And for those traumatised by the horrors of war, the military is exploring "forgetting" drugs to erase painful memories.

Also under research are various forms of electromagnetic radiation. Could an enemy be disoriented by a microwave beam? Could thoughts and intentions be read at a distance? As Moreno comments, many US citizens already believe that their brains are being read or manipulated by the surveillance state – and judging by my email inbox, a fair number on this side of the Atlantic share the suspicion. For decades Darpa has been interested in microwave radiation devices that could disorient and pacify opponents, or, even better, read their intentions and modify their thoughts.

• Hilary Rose and Steven Rose's new book, Genes, Cells and Brains: Bioscience's Promethean Promises will be published by Verso later this year.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jun/01/mind-wars-jonathan-moreno-review

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