Helping the Postmodern Ajax: Is Managing Combat Trauma through Pharmacology a Faustian Bargain?

War causes trauma that can undo a warrior's character. Sophocles' Ajax is a good example of a traumatized warrior and some Afghanistan and Iraq veterans see striking parallels between contemporary conflicts and the Trojan War. With the United States increasingly facing asymmetrical enemies, there are now many traumatized soldiers and vets, not only suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but also committing suicide. Combat stress, being central to warfare, has until now been incurable. Today, advanced military R&D projects aim to find a magic pill to forestall PTSD. Propranolol may be such a drug, as it could be used to prevent PTSD by erasing emotional memories. However, this attempt at pharmacoprevention raises many ethical questions. Most importantly, it threatens to instrumentalize away the existential element of war and to push warfare into a posthuman age. To better understand the challenges we are facing today, it is important not only to read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World but also to go back to the Greeks.