Cultural neuroscience and the military: Applications, perspectives, controversies

Abstract

As we are entering the golden age of brain research and the Biotechnological Revolution in Military Affairs (BIOTECH RMA), not only civilian entities in research endeavors such as the American BRAIN initiative or the European Human Brain Project, but also security and defense communities start exploring the cognitive area of human activity. Brain research, however, due to numerous technological and other limitations, does not cover the complexity of the mind, and the cultural variety of the individuals involved. Culturally influenced cognitive, affective and even physical domains embrace emotional antecedents, conditioning, moral reasoning, perception and gaining situational awareness, communication, approach to death, somatic health, aggression, responding to narratives, group relations and many others. However, only a limited amount of other research has been performed and reported on in this aspect. Therefore, the chapter analyzes the existing evidence on the culture-brain nexus and its numerous implications for human functioning in a variety of domains, reviews the existing solutions and projects that leading military institutions already realize in the cognitive field, and in the light of newest findings of cultural neuroscience, proposes new potential solutions and enhancements for the design and conduct of military training and conduct of non-kinetic aspects of military operations. The aim of the research piece is to expand on the added value of the cultural neuroscience research to the field, and to discuss the resulting reservations and controversies of a situation in which winning “hearts and minds” might no longer be a metaphor.