Human enhancement and the military

Wired magazine has an interesting piece on human enhancement and the future of the military. Much of the scenarios the piece discusses are "bad-case scenarios" where soldiers do bad things as a result of drug or prosthetic "enhancement." Much of this strikes me as either banal or worse. If there are bad effects, then we are not talking about enhancements, we are talking about experimental stuff that has no place on a battlefield. And moreover, the military has been doing this kind of thing for years, and while they have had some problems, the military can hardly afford to make such experimental soldiers and the effects widespread.

Nonetheless there is a lot that the military needs to do to be cautious, and this report may serve as a good reminder of the danger of prematurely fielding enhancements that have unknown or dangerous side effects.