Biotechnology and International Security by Malet David;

Author:Malet, David;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Unlimited Model
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Future Avenues of Biowarfare

The ability to obtain detailed information about every bodily function at the biochemical level invites cuts with the same double-edged sword as other biotech developments have. The possibility of healing and strengthening entire populations with access to these resources coexists with the recognition that the salutary use of biotechnology depends entirely on the will of the wielder. Technologically advanced states will be the only actors with the capacity to develop novel direct-effect weapons in the foreseeable future and also have the opportunity to expand their economic dominance. Even if they do not avail themselves of genetic arsenals, they will be in a position to use the technologies to enhance the physical well-being of their own populations, potentially increasing the productivity of their workforces while lowering conventional health-care costs.

DARPA’s Narrative Networks (N2) program examined brain activities such as the neurological processes occurring when subjects felt empathy, for data about how to use stories to “facilitate faster and better communication of information in foreign information operations” (Miranda et al., 2015: 62). Critics contended that the military wanted to create propaganda software that could continuously update its spin power to persuade audiences in any manner necessary (Dewar, 2015). Given the prior work of project leader William Casebeer on counterterrorism and the hand-wringing during the 2010s over the apparent inability of security agencies to match what was described as the compelling narrative spun by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to recruit thousands of Westerners, the rationale and appeal of N2 are evident. Comic book writer Grant Morrison (2011: 415), in discussing Casebeer’s work on “counter-narrative strategies,” finds the implications of narratives “as addictive as cocaine” lies not just in discrediting enemy rationales for fighting but in the capacity “to develop a technology whereby a cadet is told a story so convincing he believes he’s superhuman before a battle.”

Some biotechnologies that could easily be used as instruments of political control are already available. Researchers evaluating patients who suffer from a rare genetic disorder called Williams syndrome that renders victims “pathologically trusting” have determined that their brains produce too much of the hormone oxytocin, which they have dubbed “the trust hormone.”

As one researcher, Paul Zak, described it, “if you just had high levels of oxytocin, you would be giving away resources to every stranger on the street.”

In 2001, Zak began spraying oxytocin up the noses of college students to see if the hormone would change the way they interacted with strangers. It did. Squirt oxytocin up the nose of a college kid, and he’s 80 percent more likely to distribute his own money to perfect strangers. This gave Zak an idea. Like some comic-book villain concocting a plan to take over the world by dumping happy pills in the water supply, he wondered if it might be possible to use this molecule—oxytocin—to change the way people felt about the government. . . .

Zak put 130 test subjects through his normal routines. He sprayed half of them with oxytocin, half with a placebo, then ran them through a battery of tests and measurements.

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