Thrust Group Leader:  Clark Miller
Thrust Group Participant:  Brad Allenby, Doug Brattebo, Michael Burnam-Fink, Elizabeth Corley, Peter French, Shannon French, Jason Gatliff, Yoav Gortzak, Rick O’Meara, Christina Nulle, Jason Robert, Brian Smith, Stuart Youngner


Thrust Group 4 focuses on the implications of emerging scientific and technological developments and their use in military and national security applications for civil-military relations in contemporary and future societies.  

As Figure 1 suggests, this domain has deep repercussions for national security – including military operations and culture – and at the same time for society, politics, and the economy.

Even the most basic formulation of the issues at stake in Thrust Group 4 would highlight the need to understand how societal perceptions of emerging military technologies – whether used in military operations or as dual use technologies in civilian applications – will impact the military’s ability to use advanced science and technology to protect and enhance national security.

More deeply, emerging military technologies may collapse the distinction between military and civilian affairs (e.g., when civilians and civilian infrastructure such as food systems or IT networks become the battlefield), threaten the balance of power in society between military and civilian institutions, impinge on the capacity of democratic institutions to appropriately govern and regulate technology, shape the global legitimacy of the US military, or, most pervasively, contribute to the rise of new forms of social, military, or political order that transform human identities, bodies, values, behaviors, relationships, and institutions.

At the core of Thrust Group 4’s work lies the concept of anticipatory governance of science and technology: can humanity build a better future by reflecting on the future it is building today through science and technology? This question demands that we contemplate – as best we are able – not only the purposes for which we are advancing science and technology but also the trajectories followed as science and technology are taken up and put to use by individuals and institutions around the globe. CETMONS is, itself, an instrument of anticipatory governance, fostering explicit deliberation about the kinds of futures humanity may inhabit as a consequence of the militarization of fields such as robotics, adaptive neural prosthetics, brain-machine interfaces, information technologies, and human enhancement.

Thrust Group 4 aims to advance these deliberations through studies pursued under seven themes:

•  Dual Use:   What are the implications of flows of ideas, devices, and people associated with emerging technologies between civilian and military innovation systems and between military operations and civil society? How will emerging technologies transform the need for or our capacity to govern these flows?

In 2005, researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control successfully recreated and published the DNA sequence from the 1918 Spanish Flu Virus. The publication generated immediate controversy among biological weapons scientists and arms control specialists about whether it was appropriate to publicly release scientific information with clear potential military applications.

•  Distribution of Power:   How will emerging technologies impact the role and presence of the military in civil society and the distribution of power between civilian and military institutions?

In Europe and North America, we often forget the persistent role militaries and military institutions play in political affairs in other parts of the world. Military technologies can dramatically alter the power of military institutions in society, shoring up the ability of small minorities to maintain ultimate control over state institutions, often violently, as in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and in the genocides in Rwanda. How emerging military technologies will alter this dynamic is yet to be seen, but both civilian and military governments around the globe often go to great lengths to control both the news media and, today, the Internet.

•  Internal Security:   How will emerging technologies blur the boundaries between military operations, homeland security, and law enforcement? What will the consequences be for freedom of congregation, movement, and speech, limitations on state searches and seizures, and other constitutionally protected rights?

DARPA is reportedly developing insect or insect-like robots designed to enhance military surveillance capabilities in complex battlefield settings, such as urban spaces. Needless to say, such robots would be widely sought after by internal security organs and could raise complicated ethical, legal, and social questions about privacy, the abuse of police power, and inappropriate forms of search.

•  Democratic Governance:  Who controls and regulates military technologies, domestically and internationally?

The US Army has identified human enhancement drugs and devices as a potentially valuable tool for creating the warfighter of the future. Is the military use of such technologies sufficiently dangerous – not just in a medical sense but in ethical, social, and democratic terms – that it would make sense to insist on civilian control of their development, application and use? We have done so in other cases, like nuclear weapons, albeit with mixed results.

•  Civilian Life in Combat Zones:  What is civilian life like in combat zones and what does this mean for the exercise of military technological power and its legitimacy? How will emerging military technologies shape civilian experience in combat zones and the definition of the battlefield? What happens when civilian spaces like the Internet or the food production and distribution system become the battlefield?

While US estimates of the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths from Predator attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan range from 10-30%, the attacks are having a debilitating impact on civilian support for US military operations. The ultimate impact of this disintegration of support is unclear, but may include difficulties recruiting local military troops as allies and increasing local support for insurgent forces.

•  Home Life for Enhanced Warfighters:  What happens when enhanced soldiers come home and retire? Will society and its institutions be ready for them?

Imagine the technologically optimized warfighter of the future, cognitively enhanced to process battlefield information more quickly and with less emotional overload, with advanced, integrated implants that allow for faster, more accurate aiming of weapons and wireless uploading of tactical information into battlefield management systems. How well, if at all, will this individual fit into civilian society upon retirement? Will the VA be prepared to remove, repair, or upgrade his or her enhancements? Will families be prepared for their impact on home life?

•  Social Transformation:  How will emerging military technologies transform ideas, identities, values, behaviors, bodies, relationships, and institutions?

When automobiles were first introduced to rural American life, farmers shot at them, dug trenches across roads filled with sharpened objects, and otherwise expressed their deep displeasure with this machine invading their world.   Within a decade, however, they were using them (parked on bricks) to power their washing machines and butter churns and otherwise provide power for many farm jobs.   Only much later did automakers begin making trucks, tractors, stationary engines, and other diverse devices to replace the automobile’s functionality.   At the same time, by adopting and using the automobile for various tasks, people changed the character of farm lives and landscapes in radical ways. Will emerging military technologies become an instrument in the 21st century transformation of how we live and work?