Net Benefit of Performance-Enhancing Drugs Within U.S. Army Special Forces
Abstract
The United States Army Special Forces (USASF) depends on high fitness levels to accomplish higher-risk missions in various environments and under the most extreme conditions. USASF stresses the importance of improving an operators strength, endurance, and cognitive ability. Soldiers within USASF undergo a rigorous selection process to secure the right person for the right job and adhere to the Special Operations Forces (SOF) truth: humans are more important than hardware. Thus, performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) can serve a vital role in an operator's ability to become bigger, faster, stronger, or smarter. To understand the use of PEDs within USASF, we ask: How much does USASF benefit from researching and implementing performance-enhancing drugs given the current knowledge of biotechnologies? Our thesis explores research on PEDs from competitive sports and overlays it with the USASF mission sets while considering the mechanics of PED use and side effects to gain a better understanding through an operational lens. We argue that PEDs can be beneficial to USASF but only in certain capacities. Our personal experiences as Green Berets and the use of declassified missions support our conclusion. Furthermore, our findings depict how PEDs could be beneficial in both capacity-building and capacity-restoring roles; however, due to limited data on PED use in the military, a more in-depth review is needed to determine the impacts on the USASF Regiment.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2020
- Accession Number
- AD1126748
Entities
People
- Chad A. Alford
- Sean Chang
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School