Whether performance-enhancing drugs should be used by the military will ultimately be determined by the attitudes of civil society. These attitudes are not immutable.
There are scenarios in which the pharmacological performance enhancement of soldiers would be ethically and legally permissible. These scenarios recognize the unique nature of warfare, in which normal risk–benefit horizons are revised, making the administration of drugs to otherwise healthy individuals acceptable, given the alternative outcomes. However, drug use in the military should not become routine, in compensation for poor planning, or equipment and training shortfalls. Military doctrine and safeguarding procedures would need to ensure that performance-enhancing drugs are not abused, and that soldiers using pharmacological measures have tested and trained with the drug prior to deployment. This would require close collaboration with military healthcare professionals, and external ethical oversight, which in the UK would take place through the Ministry of Defence’s Research Ethics Committee.
The implementation of a pharmacological performance-enhancement programme by the military would present a number of challenges. Significant among these is the requirement for soldiers to be afforded voluntary and informed consent to such interventions. Such consent is problematic in the military, where the organizational structure and culture make soldiers vulnerable to coercion from their superiors, peers and individual career concerns. Furthermore, the potential secrecy that would surround the use of pharmacological enhancement in the military would additionally cloud decisions to consent. And if non-acceptance led to partial uptake among soldiers, commanders would be faced with a dilemma of whether to decline the benefits of performance-enhancing drugs, or allow some soldiers to enhance while others do not – a choice that would be likely to have divisive implications for morale and unit cohesion.
Ultimately, the decision over whether pharmacological performance-enhancing drugs should be used by the military will be determined by the attitudes of civil society, and these attitudes are not immutable. Just as the use of amphetamines during the Second World War was shaped by social opinions at that time, the motivation for drug use by the modern military will be formed through changing attitudes to drugs in our society. In this way, the evolving social norms in modern Britain towards the use of drugs – be they prescribed medications, or drugs developed for professional and recreational usage – will determine whether the UK military implements programmes of pharmacological performance enhancement in the future.
