The use of chemicals as agents of war

Military forces have used chemicals for centuries. This includes the use of chemical weapons, which appeared on battlefields throughout the 20th century, fentanyl as a “knock-out gas” in an anti-terror operation in Russia in 2002, and the use of amphetamine (per 2023) as a stimulant in the U.S. Air Force. Besides destroying enemy forces and seizing territory, one of the objectives of war is to shape perceptions and beliefs, and gain political and social control over populations. To achieve this, chemicals or pharmaceuticals might be used to enhance the cognitive skills of own forces or degrade that of adversaries. Examples are psychoactive substances, neurotoxic chemicals and incapacitating agents. Such agents can be used adversely to affect cognitive abilities and the decision-making process causing harmful consequences. Thus, their use needs to be assessed from a cognitive warfare perspective. Cognitive warfare aims to exploit cognition facets to disrupt, undermine, influence, or modify human and technological decisions. NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) defines cognitive warfare as activities conducted in synchronization with other instruments of power to affect attitudes and behavior by influencing, protecting, or disrupting individual and group cognition to gain advantage over an adversary. Its impact is across all operational domains. It represents the convergence of a wide range of advanced technologies and human factors and systems, such as artificial intelligence, neuroscience, biotechnology, and human enhancement, which NATO’s adversaries deliberately use in the 21st-century battlespace. As adversaries can target humans’ ability and vulnerability to make timely and wise decisions and situational awareness adversely, it is crucial to understand the threats of such agents against military personnel and the civilian population/society. This report aims to contribute to the ongoing effort to advance our understanding of adversary cognitive warfare attack vectors by providing an overview of chemicals as agents of war, with a focus on their cognitive effects. The main findings of this report are: •The rapidly advancing field of drug development and drug delivery systems should beclosely monitored due to the inherent dual-use issue of neuroscience. •There is a wide range of chemicals that can be used to enhance or degrade cognition.However, there is a key challenge of controlled delivery and uptake for both thedevelopment and use of such agents. •Research-based knowledge is needed to obtain a more in-depth understanding ofpotential cognitive weapons to counteract their development and the effects ofchemicals that can affect cognition. This is critical because NATO’s adversaries do notnecessarily operate under the same ethical standards and values as liberaldemocracies.