RAND researchers in a recently released report explore biology as the platform on which future wars will be fought.  Plagues, Cyborgs, and Supersoldiers:  The Human Domain of War “examines the existing and potential future uses of biotechnology in warfare and battle  – and look at the human body as a warfighting domain: “…a future in which biotechnology is used by both state and nonstate actors…future actors may use pathogens, brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), genomic enhancements, and wearable technology to supplement and strengthen warfighters.”  A failure of imagination this report is not.

The report underscores the importance of bioengineering to modern strategy, a theme we have been pursuing for years. This is a recurring OODAcon topic and the subject of our updated series on what executives need to know about bioengineering.

The Future of the Bioeconomy and Biodefense

“‘Biodefense’ referred to…potential catastrophes that could arise from the use of biological agents in warfare or terrorism – and the measures taken to protect people and nations against these biological risks and threat.” 

Of all the exponential technologies, we emerged from OODAcon 2023 last year with a renewed respect for the future of biotechnology.  Words such as “breathtaking” and “game changer” just do not capture the impact of the bioeconomy in the next ten to twenty years.  Biology is considered the” ultimate distributed manufacturing platform”   – utilizing DNA and RNA to create bioengineered materials that have application in a variety of new and existing markets and industry sectors  The distributed manufacturing capabilities of biology offer immense potential for innovation and “Platform Economy” ecosystems, economies of scale, interoperability, XaaS offerings, and proprietary and open-source applications. It is important to remember that business model innovation and creative value proposition designs are equally as important as the general application technology itself.   

There is the clear, positive potential of it all  – gene therapy, regenerative medicine techniques, biocarbon conversion, bio foundry services, and microbial factory tools – existing alongside the inevitable unintended consequences, cognitive biases and failures of imagination  – as bad actors weaponize the same technology as a function of the democratization and redistribution of power through advantageous technological capabilties. 

“Biodefense” has historically referred to these potential threats  – potential catastrophes that could arise from the use of biological agents in warfare or terrorism – and the measures taken to protect people and nations against these biological risks and threat.  The field of biodefense is multidisciplinary – drawing from medical science, epidemiology, military strategy, law enforcement, and public policy. Overall, the future of biodefense (in the context of biotechnology and bioengineering) will require comprehensive planning and technological advancements to inform threat intelligence assessments – and proactive measures need to be put in place to tackle the emergence of newfangled data management, IT supply chain, and network vulnerabilities unique to bioengineering, genomics, etc.  

Biotechnology and the Future of War

…a future in which biotechnology is used by both state and nonstate actors…future actors may use pathogens, brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), genomic enhancements, and wearable technology to supplement and strengthen warfighters.”  

RAND researchers (Luke J. Matthews, Mary Lee, Brandon De Bruhl, Daniel Elinoff, and Christopher A. Eusebi) recently dispensed with biodefense strategies  Instead, in their recently released report, they explore biology as the platform on which future wars will be fought.  Plagues, Cyborgs, and Supersoldiers:  The Human Domain of War “examines the existing and potential future uses of biotechnology in warfare and battle  – and look at the human body as a warfighting domain.” A failure of imagination this report is not. 

Plagues, Cyborgs, and Supersoldiers

The Human Domain of War

The authors posited two questions on which they based their research:

1. How have advancements in biotechnology affected warfighting, and how could they do so in the future?
2. Can the human body itself be a warfighting domain? Can the body itself be an offensive or defensive weapon?

A brief overview of the paper:

A complex, high-threat landscape is emerging in which future wars might be fought with humans controlling hyper-sophisticated machines with their thoughts; the military-industrial base is disturbed by synthetically generated, genomically targeted plagues; and the future warfighter goes beyond the baseline genome to become an enhanced warfighter who is capable of survival in the harshest of combat environments.  The authors of this report examine the existing and potential future uses of biotechnology in warfare and battle and look at the human body as a warfighting domain.

They envision a future in which biotechnology is used by both state and nonstate actors to affect warfighting. Sophisticated future actors may use pathogens, brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), genomic enhancements, and wearable technology to supplement and strengthen warfighters.

About This Report

The introduction to the report is of note – as it expands on the brief overview above: 

“Advances in biotechnology within the past half decade have renewed questions about the use of biotechnologies in a warfighting context. Prior to advances of the past few years and with respect to nation-states, biological weapons were usually deemed too liable to inflict harm on one’s own forces to be of much strategic value; past military applications of genomics are viewed largely as misguided eugenicist pseudoscience; and, until recently, such technologies as brain-computer interfaces (BCI) were too unwieldy for the battlefield. As of this writing in 2023, technological improvements— including messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines, the use of CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) gene sequences as genetic engineering tools, and advances in BCI—and their accessibility to both friendly forces and adversaries—could shift these strategic calculations.

This report explores how recently achieved or likely future technologies change strategic choices for the human body as a warfighting domain. The analyses and recommendations in this report should be of interest to policymakers in the biotechnology, defense, and intelligence communities, as well as to a general audience.”

For the full report, see Plagues, Cyborgs, and Supersoldiers:  The Human Domain of War.

What Next?

“Internet of Bodies (IoB) technology will continue to advance…Genomic surveillance is the most likely near-term technology to affect warfighting…”

Key Findings: 

• Several countries have advantages—when compared with the United States—in their abilities to deal with the effects of a globally released, person-to-person transmissible bioweapon.
• State actors are more likely to use person-to-person transmissible bioweapons than they are to use nontransmissible ones because it is inherently difficult to identify the natural or artificial origins of person-to-person transmissible pathogens.
• Internet of Bodies (IoB) technology will continue to advance – and the United States must be especially cognizant that any deployed technology can also be hacked.
• Genomic surveillance is the most likely near-term technology to affect warfighting, but genomic enhancement could have profound consequences should it become more feasible technically.
• State actors may find the inherent ambiguity of origins for person-to-person transmissible pathogens to be a strategic asset.

Recommendations

An OODA Network Member pointed out an area of concern with the report:  “Noticeable by its absence is no recommendation for the intelligence community (IC) to improve its collection and analysis capabilities against foreign biological, geonomics, and brain computer interfaces (BCI).” 

1. Governments should revise the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) to include strong protections, such as independent monitoring of biosafety level (BSL)–rated laboratories in a manner akin to chemical and nuclear weapons treaties. Failing BWC revisions, the United States should pursue stronger bilateral agreements for biosafety.
2. Governments should continue scrutinizing adversary biotechnology advancements to identify and publicize BWC violations.
3. Members of Congress should resist anti-vaccine populism that is at the expense of military readiness.
4. The U.S. government should continue to be vigilant about entities that misuse biotechnologies and should continue working to enhance the information security of IoB devices.
5. Stakeholders should focus the allocation of funding on projects to identify and manage risks and opportunities arising from genomic surveillance.
6. The Department of Defense (DoD) should develop clear guidance on integrating biological warfighting capabilities.
7. DoD should develop warfighting conventions on the use of IoB devices, particularly BCIs.
8. DoD should develop ways to employ genomic surveillance for improvements in military personnel selection or assignments.
9. Stakeholders should research mitigation strategies for novel pathogen potentialities to anticipate and counter adversary biotechnology threats.

Additional OODA Loop Resources

The Future Now: The State of the Bioeconomy in 2023:  The Bioeconomy in 2023 is showing clear signs of opportunities for advantage created by the exponential disruption of the industrial base (including that of defense), coupled with exponential biotechnological innovation to build the bioeconomy of the future.  The State of the Bioeconomy in 2023 includes:  Exponential Organizational Ecosystems at Speed and Scale; Blockchain Technologies; Artificial Intelligence in Biotechnology, Genomics, Healthcare and Medical Tech; Biomanufacturing in Cislunar Space; andHealth Security and Cybersecurity Challenges.   Details of current breakthroughs and strategic directions for each category can be found here.

Innovative Blockchain Technology Case Studies (by Industry Sector) – Blockchain Technologies in The Bioeconomy, Biotechnology, and Healthcare:  Over the course of 2022 and 2023, The OODA Loop Blockchain Series has explored blockchain disruption in the market and new opportunities created by blockchain technologies in both the public and private sectors.  Innovative blockchain technology efforts (by industry sector)  – with a focus on how the blockchain enables new business models, opportunities for innovative value proposition design, and decentralized governance – are listed here.

Exponential Innovation and Building the Bioeconomy of the Future:  Last year, we launched the Opportunities for Advantage Series to explore how exponential disruption and innovation require organizations to focus efforts to gain advantage. In a recent review of the series, we found that there were patterns and groupings which deserved to be highlighted to jumpstart the series for this year. To start, We found that the future of biotechnology was a cluster in the series, pointing to the opportunities for advantage created by the exponential disruption of the industrial base (including that of defense) coupled with exponential biotechnology innovation to build the bioeconomy of the future.  The following posts are a primer on the potential of such an effort  – including the challenges, threats, risks, and opportunities ahead for your organization in this technology and business ecosystem of the future.

The New Tech Trinity: Artificial Intelligence, BioTech, Quantum Tech: Will make monumental shifts in the world. This new Tech Trinity will redefine our economy, both threaten and fortify our national security, and revolutionize our intelligence community. None of us are ready for this. This convergence requires a deepened commitment to foresight and preparation and planning on a level that is not occurring anywhere. The New Tech Trinity.

The Revolution in Biology: This post provides an overview of key thrusts of the transformation underway in biology and offers seven topics business leaders should consider when updating business strategy to optimize opportunity because of these changes. For more see:  The Executive’s Guide To The Revolution in Biology

Materials Science Revolution: Room-temperature ambient pressure superconductors represent a significant innovation. Sustainability gets a boost with reprocessable materials. Energy storage sees innovations in solid-state batteries and advanced supercapacitors. Smart textiles pave the way for health-monitoring and self-healing fabrics. 3D printing materials promise disruptions in various sectors. Perovskites offer versatile applications, from solar power to quantum computing. See: Materials Science

Planning for a Continuous Pandemic Landscape: COVID-19’s geopolitical repercussions are evident, with recent assessments pointing to China’s role in its spread. Regardless of the exact origins, the same conditions that allowed COVID-19 to become a pandemic persist today. Therefore, businesses must be prepared for consistent health disruptions, implying that a substantial portion of the workforce might always operate remotely, even though face-to-face interactions remain vital for critical decisions. See: COVID Sensemaking

“AI for Enterprise”: Lessons Learned from Healthcare, Hugging Face and Clinical Language Models:  Healthcare is already in the midst of an AI revolution – with an applied technology market maturity which outpaces most other industry sectors which are in a reactive mode to the AI hype cycle.  Explore these AI healthcare use cases and apply them to your organization using design and systems thinking.

The Future of Biosafety and the Global Gain-of-Function Research Ecosystem:  Researchers from the the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) recently mapped “the gain- and loss-of-function global research landscape.”  We contextualize the CSET findings relative to the biosafety levels in U.S. biomedical laboratories. A looming question:  do other countries have the adequate commitment to health security and biosafety measures in their high risk pathogen research?

An OODAcast Conversation – Joe Tranquillo on the Revolution in Biological Science:  Joe Tranquillo is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Bucknell University and a provost at the school.  He is also and author and speaker with a knack for helping make new and at times complex subjects understandable. In this OODAcast we discuss many aspects of the revolution in biological sciences with Joe including topics like:  New ways of delivering medicines that target specific tissues; Discovery of the structure of almost every human protein; Methods to synthesize biomolecules, which can result in ways to manufacture a wide range of materials like therapeutics, flavors, fabrics, food, fuels; and New ways of growing food that are more productive and take fewer pesticides and fertilizers.

AI-powered Genomics: The convergence of machine learning, deep learning and genomics, especially in the area of AI-powered genomic health prediction, while remarkably promising will also present remarkably challenging unintended consequences.  A recent report suggests areas which need to be explored  – : starting now –  as “the issues posed by the…technologies become harder to predict, more complex and more numerous.”

For more OODA Loop News Briefs and Original Analysis, see OODA Loop: Biotechnology | Genetics | Genomics | Healthcare | Medical Tech