Tracing the Future Soldier’s Tech Stack

Movies, shows, and books have long been at the forefront of imagining the future of war. If you were to picture the “future soldier,” you’d likely picture the genetically engineered super soldiers that have captivated — and horrified — audiences for decades. Soldiers have been depicted as being engineered or bred for super strength or speed, intense rage or cold calculation, and even half-human, half-machine.While Hollywood’s most alarmist visions for the future soldier are nothing more than fantasy, advances in technologies and AI are pushing the frontier of soldier technologies. Cogs of War staff wanted to sort through what capabilities have been fielded in the force, and what may be next.To do that, we looked at fielded Army programs and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency research projects and proposals. Existing capabilities remain relatively modest. Night vision has been around for decades. Sensors and wearables to track soldier health and performance have been fielded and are becoming more common. Freeze-dried plasma started as a special operations tool and has recently been introduced into the joint medical force.Project proposals and preliminary awards from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Army indicate that a more high-tech future is arriving. An ongoing program examines non-invasive neuromodulation tech for limiting the effects of sleep deprivation, while a past program explored brain-machine interfaces that could help soldiers team with drones, cyber systems, or computers. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2021 spun up a program to invent small wearable eyeglasses for night vision, and completed a program designed to develop lightweight armor to better protect soldiers from ballistic and blast threats. The Army doled out agreements last fall for the Soldier Borne Mission Command program, intended to bring about next-generation soldier-worn headsets, and awarded a company for their physiological metrics monitoring combat shirt, to eliminate existing, bulky monitoring devices.The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has even put out proposals for changes at the genetic and cellular level. Chief among these are proposals for epigenetic engineering, intended to change what the soldier’s body does without permanently modifying their DNA, and enhanced red blood cells that could sense tough conditions and release compounds to temporarily improve the body’s ability to perform and survive.