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Asuper soldier orsupersoldier, is a conceptsoldier capable of operating beyond normal human abilities, usually through permanent artificial enhancements such as genetic modification ortechnological integration.[1] The super soldier has been a common trope inscience fiction andsuperhero fiction since the mid-20th century, but it's also used in contemporary discussion of future militaryhuman enhancement (often withdystopian connotations).[2]
Weapons and other technologies have long been used to enhance the capabilities of soldiers. Sometimes this would include changes to the soldiers themselves, as in the case ofwar paint or coca leaves used byInca warriors to stay alert.[3] However, it was only in theAmerican Revolutionary War that scientific modifications began in the form of vaccinations to enhance the immune system.[4] The attempt to create soldiers with vastly superior abilities goes back at least to the 1920s when theSoviet Union underJoseph Stalin sought to genetically engineer a pain-resistant human–ape hybrid that would be harder to kill.[4]
In 1940, the first fictional super soldier appeared with the publication of the firstCaptain America comic.[5] In the comics, a frail man named Steven Rogers joins theUS Army duringWorld War II and is given an experimental "super-soldier serum", turning him into Captain America.
Stimulants such as amphetamines have been widely used since at leastWWII to enhance or maintain the performance of soldiers.[6] Amphetamines are known to improve wakefulness, mood and concentration, but they come with negative side effects and have been blamed for the impaired judgement of twoUS Air Force pilots who bombed a Canadian unit in Afghanistan in 2002.[6]
As detailed in the bookThe Men Who Stare at Goats and its accompanying documentary series, there was a movement within the US Army from at least the late 1970s to the early 1980s to harnessuntapped (chiefly psychic) human powers.[7] Together with the exploitation of new technologies, the vision was a military of super soldiers called theFirst Earth Battalion. Officers within this movement believed some of them were capable of supernatural feats such asremote viewing or even stopping the heart of a goat by staring at it.
In recent years, a number of countries have expressed more ambitious intentions to develop enhanced soldiers, including the US,[8] UK[9][10] and France.[10] As of 2011, theUS Pentagon spent around $400 million per year researching soldier enhancements.[3] A number of these countries have said they must explore the development of soldier enhancements in response to other militaries doing the same.[10][11] In 2025, the USNational Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology claimed China is likely working on genetically engineered super soldiers.[12]
The UK'sDefence and Security Accelerator has offered funding for "Generation-After-Next (GAN) human augmentation" which may include "enhancing physical and/or psychological performance", for example by improving endurance or recovery using impalantable devices,synthetic biology, drugs, or wearable devices such as exoskeletons.[9] As a concrete example of the latter,Sarcos Robotics, formerly part ofRaytheon, has worked closely with the US military to develop full-body robotic exoskeletons like the Guardian XO, which allows one to lift 90 kg as if it were 4.5 kg.[10][13]
In 2016, Japanese scientists identified a protein intardigrades that helps them resist radiation and has the same effect on human cells.[14] In 2023, theSouth China Morning Post claimed Chinese military scientists increased the radiation resistance of human embryonic stem cells by inserting a gene from tardigrades, and that the scientists said this "could lead to super-tough soldiers who could survive nuclear fallout."[15]
US military research has considered several methods of cognitive enhancement, such as various types of transcranial stimulation and augmented reality.[16][17] Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has proved to significantly improve target detection in air traffic control simulations and performance in flight simulations.[18] Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) can also boost performance in short-term memory tasks.[18]
Since 2014, the US Army has been developing the Tactical Communications and Protective System (TCAPS), an earplug that both protects the ears from loud sounds and boosts soft noises.[19] In 2018, the US Department of Defense offered funding for vision enhancement research that could enable faster target detection.[20]
In 2019, theUS Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center (DEVCOM CBC) released a report entitledCyborg Soldier 2050: Human/Machine Fusion and the Implications for the Future of the DOD.[21] The report explores visual, muscular, auditory and neural enhancements it views as "technically feasible by 2050 or earlier."[21]: v It identifies the latter as particularly revolutionary for combat, involving not only communication with autonomous weapon systems, butbrain-to-brain interactions and "read/write capability between humans and machines".[21]: v [8] The report talks about the need to control public perception of these technologies, while also stating that its development will likely be driven by civilian demand.[8] It predicts that beyond 2050 these technologies will accelerate inequalities and clash with established legal and ethical frameworks.[21]: v–vi
In 2021, theUK Ministry of Defence'sDevelopment, Concepts and Doctrine Centre, in partnership with Germany'sBundeswehr Office for Defence Planning, publishedHuman Augmentation – The Dawn of a New Paradigm.[11] The report discusses a number of emerging and potential technologies that could greatly improve human capabilities, both on and off the battlefield, and their potential implications for defence and society, including the rise of super soldiers. It suggests that human augmentation will primarily be limited by public opinion, which will become more accepting of it over time, although elements of society may continue to resist it, drawing a parallel with resistance to vaccination.[11]: 46 Paul Cornish, a visiting professor atLSE IDEAS, criticized the report for overlooking free will in its conceptualization of humans as platforms and for advocating that governments steer progress in human augmentation without regard to ethicists or public opinion.[22]
In 2018, neuroscientistE. Paul Zehr publishedChasing Captain America: How Advances in Science, Engineering and Biotechnology will produce a Superhuman for a lay audience. Zehr suggests some super soldier capabilities may only be a few years or decades away, but thinks giving many of them to a single person could have significant negative effects.[23]
Just asspace travel is the archetypal sci-fi subject, sosuperheroes are the archetypal comic-book subject. Themilitary subgenre of SF may be focused onspace warfare, but its comic-book counterpart centres on the super-soldier.
Since Captain America's debut as the first fictional super soldier in 1940, super soldiers have become common in military science fiction and superhero fiction. Other well known examples of super soldiers are theX-Men,Iron Man andLuc Deveraux of theUniversal Soldier film series.