The conversation about biological enhancement for warfighters used to be a fringe thought experiment. Today it lives in funding proposals, training labs, and strategy documents. NATO has publicly put biotechnology and human performance augmentation on its agenda, framing the debate as one of defensive opportunity and ethical constraint.
I spoke with Professor Nita Farahany about where the science actually sits, and what it means when states treat bodies as strategic assets. Farahany is a scholar of law and neuroethics who has been unusually vocal about the need to protect mental privacy as neurotechnology moves from lab benches to helmets and headsets. What follows is an edited and faithful synthesis of our exchange, grounded in public research and policy work available through 1 October 2025.
Q: Why is the military interest in biological and neuro technologies accelerating now? A: Three forces are colliding. First, advances in life sciences and neurotechnology have made plausible interventions that were once science fiction. Second, digital tools and AI are accelerating design, delivery, and monitoring of biological interventions. Third, the security environment is driving demand for resilience measures that let forces operate longer, recover faster, and survive in contested environments. NATO and allied militaries are explicitly treating biotech and human performance as strategic technical areas to be shaped rather than ignored.
Q: What kinds of enhancements are closest to operational reality? A: In the near term expect improvements built around physiology and training rather than genetic rewrites. Programs that aim to speed learning through noninvasive peripheral nerve stimulation are already mature research projects. DARPA’s Targeted Neuroplasticity Training program for example explored whether well timed peripheral stimulation can boost synaptic plasticity and accelerate cognitive skills training. Those are not implant stories. They are repeatable protocols combined with wearable hardware and software.
Parallel to neurotechnology, metabolic and nutritional strategies are quietly practical. The Department of Defense has funded clinical studies that test whether ketone-based interventions and dietary protocols can blunt the cognitive harms of sleep deprivation and improve resilience. These are the kinds of interventions that could be fielded more quickly because the safety and delivery pathways are comparatively straightforward.
Q: And the more worrying categories? A: Gene editing, long‑lived biological manufacturables, and any intervention that permanently alters physiology are the high risk, high consequence items. They carry complex safety, legal, and ethical problems that compound over decades. That is why biosecurity experts and ethicists emphasize governance now even as those capabilities remain nascent for operational use.
Q: From a rights perspective what keeps you up at night? A: Professor Farahany frames the issue around cognitive liberty and consent. She has argued that we need new protections to guard mental privacy and autonomy as devices and interventions gain the technical ability to read or modulate internal states. In a military context consent is never straightforward. The chain of command, mission pressures, and career incentives can all shape choices in ways that muddy whether consent is informed and voluntary. That combination creates real risks of coercion and long term harm for service members.
Q: Are institutions aware of those concerns? A: Some are. Military research programs increasingly embed ethical, legal, and social implications work into technical projects. DARPA’s neurotech programs for example funded external ELSI review and workshops to anticipate social problems as the technical work progressed. NATO’s public strategy likewise articulates an intent to pursue defensive, lawful, and ethical pathways. Those moves matter. They do not eliminate risk but they create opportunities to build guardrails before deployment.
Q: How should policymakers prioritize research funding and oversight? A: The short answer is focus on readiness plus rights. Fund what demonstrably improves resilience without compromising autonomy. That means investing in: rigorous safety trials for metabolic or pharmacologic countermeasures; independent human‑subjects oversight and long term health monitoring; interoperable standards for neurodevice data protection; and durable care commitments for people who receive enhancements during service. Independent, transparent evaluation is as important as the underlying science. The policy literature and recent specialist panels encourage exactly this mixture of technical validation and ethical precommitment.
Q: Can international norms keep up? A: History says not unless states choose to. NATO’s strategy is notable because it signals a value based approach from an influential alliance, but regulatory harmonization will be slow. Research is global and technologies diffuse quickly. That means norms must be pursued on multiple tracks: practical export controls and research safeguards, shared medical standards for trial safety, and treaties or agreements that limit coercive or weaponized applications. Without coordinated action the risk is a patchwork regime that incentivizes secrecy and accelerates an arms race in bodies.
Q: What should soldiers and the public demand now? A: Transparency, durable care commitments, and rights protections. Service members need clear guarantees about long term medical support should an enhancement cause chronic harm. The public needs transparency about what research is being done in their name and whether moral lines are being crossed. Farahany and other scholars stress the importance of protecting cognitive liberty and of making mental privacy a public conversation before technologies become routine.
Closing thought Biology and the battlefield are converging in ways that magnify both the promise and the peril of modern war. Some interventions will reliably make soldiers safer and more capable in the short term. Others could change what it means to be a combatant, and to be a human, in ways that only become clear years from now. If there is a policy lesson it is simple and urgent: prioritize research that is reversible, well tested, and paired with independent oversight. Build care obligations into any deployment plan. And lock in rights that protect individual minds as fiercely as we protect physical bodies. The ethics debate is not a luxury. For this topic it is the strategic technology.