Neurotechnology, Global Relations, and National Security - Neurotechnology in National Security and Defense - page 2

This mandates appreciation of culture as an important force in determining
the interactively biopsychosocial dimensions of human functioning. At the most
basic level, culture refers to the development (i.e., cultivation) of living mate-
rial, and hence, it becomes important, if not necessary to evaluate how “culture”
engages and sustains the set of shared material traits, characteristic features,
knowledge, attitudes, values, and behaviors of people in place and time. This
definition rightly reveals that culture establishes and reflects particular biologi-
cal characteristics (that develop and are preserved in response to environments)
that can be expressed through cognitions and behaviors. In this way, culture is
both a medium for biopsychosocial development and a forum and vector for its
expression and manifestations (Ridley 2003; Giordano et al. 2008). Defining the
neural bases of such biological-environmental interactions may yield important
information about factors that dispose and foster various actions, including coop-
eration, altruism, conflict, and aggression (Casebeer, 2003; Cacioppo et al. 2006;
Verplaetse et al. 2009).
Until rather recently, most efforts toward global relations, as well as national
and international security and defense, have focused upon social factors influencing
human behaviors, including hostility and patterned violence. Given that these behav-
iors are devised and articulated by human factors, and humans are most accurately
defined as biopsychosocial organisms that are embedded within and responsive to
geocultural environments, it is important to address and discern those (neuro)biolog-
ical factors that are affected by and interact with psychosocial variables to dispose
and instigate hostility and violence. Neuro S/T provides techniques and tools that are
designed to assess, access, and target these neurological substrates, which could be
employed to affect the putative cognitive, emotional, and behavioral bases of human
aggression, conflict, and warfare.
NEURO S/T IN NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE
This establishes the viability and potential role, if not value of neuro S/T in programs
of national security, intelligence, and defense (NSID). The challenges posed for and
by using neuro S/T in these ways are as follows: (1) to develop a more complete
understanding of mechanisms that precipitate aggression and patterned violence;
(2) to provide practical means to assess, affect, alter, and/or impede these mecha-
nisms; and (3) to base any such findings, options, and actions upon realistic appraisal
of the capability, limitations, and ethico-legal and sociopolitical direction or con-
straint of this science, technology, and information.
As detailed throughout this topic, a number of neuroscientiic techniques and
technologies are being utilized in NSID efforts, including:
1. Neural systems modeling and human-machine interactive networks in
intelligence, training, and operational systems (see Chapters 3 and 4).
2. Neuro S/T approaches to optimizing performance and resilience in military
personnel (see Chapter 5).
3. Neuro S/T in operational medicine (see Chapter 6).