Scientists Warn Brain Warfare Could Become the Next ‘Battlefield’

Experts say the world is sleepwalking into a new era of chemical warfare as rapid advances in neuroscience raise the prospect of weapons designed hijack the brain.

Michael Crowley and Malcolm Dando of Bradford University headed to The Hague this weekend to warn that rapidly advancing neuroscience could be twisted into weapons aimed not at the body, but at the brain.

“We are entering an era where the brain itself could become a battlefield,” said Dr Crowley. “The tools to manipulate the central nervous system – to sedate, confuse, or even coerce – are becoming more precise, more accessible, and more attractive to states.”

The only documented use that central nervous system (CNS)-acting chemical weapons was used at scale was on Oct. 26, 2002, when Russian Special Forces deployed a chemical aerosol against Chechen terrorists to rescue hostages in the Dubrovka theatre

Russian forces pumped a “mysterious gas” believed to be a fentanyl-based chemical into a Moscow theatre to end a hostage crisis, knocking out everyone inside and killing at least 129 hostages who never received proper medical treatment.

The Bradford University expert’s new book, Preventing Weaponization of CNS-acting Chemicals, lays out the threat.

It goes into the history of state-sponsored research into CNS-acting chemicals, from Cold War-era experiments by the CIA and Soviet Union to more recent incidents

Breakthroughs designed to understand and treat brain disorders could be hijacked to develop novel central-nervous-system agents, chemicals capable of disabling crowds, manipulating behaviour, or suppressing dissent at the flick of a switch.

The authors claim that that “benign” neurological research, if left unregulated, could feed directly into tools for repression or battlefield use.

“Advances in neuroscience, pharmacology, synthetic biology, AI and delivery mechanisms are enabling a level of precision and control that was previously unimaginable,” the authors said.

A war on the mind, then, as if there isn’t one already…