According to a startling new analysis by British security experts, we are rapidly approaching a reality where the biology of our own brains can be weaponized against us. The era of the “brain weapon” has arrived, and the international community is dangerously unprepared.

“It does sound like science fiction,” say the authors of a new book on the matter. “The danger is that it becomes science fact.”

Your Brain on War

The concept of mind control or mind altering weapons often evokes pulp novels of the mid-20th century. However, during the Cold War, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China all “actively sought” to develop weapons targeting the central nervous system, says Michael Crowley of Bradford University. Now, advances in AI and pharmacology are creating unprecedented risks to human cognition, behavior and security.

The goal of such weapons is usually not mind control or lethal force, but rather incapacitation. Military strategists envisioned chemicals that could cause “loss of consciousness or sedation or hallucination or incoherence or paralysis and disorientation,” says Crowley.

We’ve already seen this happen decades ago. In 2002, armed Chechen militants took 900 people hostage in a Moscow theater. Russian security forces responded by pumping an aerosolized chemical into the ventilation system to neutralize the attackers. They used derivatives of fentanyl, a potent opioid.

While the siege was broken, the cost was catastrophic. More than 120 hostages died from the effects of the chemical agents, and an unknown number suffered long-term health consequences. It remains the only time a central nervous system (CNS) weapon has been used at such a scale.

Crowley and emeritus professor Malcolm Dando believe the risk of CNS weapons should be taken more seriously.

Their comprehensive new book, Preventing Weaponization of CNS-acting Chemicals: A Holistic Arms Control Analysis, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, serves as a sobering dispatch from the frontier of military science. The threat is “real and growing” but there are major gaps in our arms control treaties, they say.

A Wake-Up Call

Many fields of science have progressed tremendously since 2002. Modern research allows for a much deeper understanding of the brain’s biochemistry. But the same knowledge can also be weaponized to attack brain function. The same research intended to cure Alzheimer’s disease, treat depression, or map the neural pathways of addiction can be inverted for malign purposes. This is known in security circles as the “dual-use” dilemma.

The threat is no longer just about knocking soldiers unconscious. It is about “sophisticated and targeted” manipulation of consciousness, perception, and memory. The researchers describe a landscape where chemicals could be used to suppress dissent in civilian populations or disorient troops with terrifying specificity.

This weekend, Crowley and Dando are traveling to The Hague for the 30th session of the Conference of the States Parties (CSP), the body that oversees the Chemical Weapons Convention. Their mission is to convince world leaders that existing treaties are riddled with gaps that leave the door open for neuro-weaponry.

The two researchers propose a “Holistic Arms Control” approach. They argue that the current reactive model (banning weapons only after they appear) is insufficient when science moves this fast; particularly in the age of AI.

“We need to move from reactive to proactive governance,” said Dando for The Guardian. He proposes rigorously examining biochemical agents and the physiological systems they affect, and changing international laws to ensure they cover these substances.

As the boundary between healing the mind and hacking it becomes increasingly blurred, the message from the two researchers is urgent. “This is a wake-up call,” Crowley says. “We must act now to protect the integrity of science and the sanctity of the human mind.”