In my illustration above, I showcase an EPIC battle of the future, where soldiers are equipped with exoskeletons.
For decades, powered suits have lived mostly in science fiction — Starship Troopers, Halo, Iron Man. But in labs, proving grounds, and even along frigid mountain borders, exoskeletons (powered and passive) are moving from prototypes to practical tools that enlarge a soldier’s endurance, load-carrying capacity, and resilience.
The United States, China, and Russia — each for its own strategic reasons — are treating robotic augmentation as a competitive domain in the broader race to harden troops, speed logistics, and stretch human performance. The race is real, though the destination is not the invulnerable “super-soldier” of films. Instead, nations are converging on a more sober goal: targeted, task-specific augmentation that delivers measurable battlefield utility without the fantasy.
From “Iron Man” to incremental gains
American programs illustrate the reality check. After years of headline-grabbing initiatives — most famously SOCOM’s TALOS effort — the Pentagon pivoted from building a comic-book suit to fielding practical assistance for muscles and joints, stabilizing aim, and preventing overuse injuries. That pivot is clear in two strands of U.S. investment. First, the services have repeatedly tested lower-body devices like Lockheed Martin’s ONYX and Fortis systems that offload weight from knees and hips and improve stamina under heavy loads. Second, research groups have explored exoskeletal splints such as MAXFAS to dampen micro-tremor and improve marksmanship, a narrow but tactically valuable use case. The common thread is abandoning the dream of a bulletproof, all-purpose shell in favor of narrowly scoped performance aids soldiers will actually wear.
DARPA’s “soft exosuit” programs under Warrior Web accelerated that shift. Rather than rigid frames, researchers built textile-based “exomuscles” that unobtrusively reduce metabolic cost during marching and lifting — think smart garments that help ankles and hips rather than a mechanical carapace. That architecture is more compatible with body armor and grunt realities like getting in and out of vehicles. It’s no coincidence that today’s Army assessments emphasize commercially derived designs, logistics tasks, and risk-reduction for overburdened troops over sci-fi leaps.
This pragmatism traces back to a simple constraint: batteries and actuators still impose weight, bulk, and maintenance burdens that erase gains if the mission isn’t carefully chosen. Reuters summarized the tradeoff years ago — yes, exoskeletons can make soldiers stronger, but engineering and power limits make task selection everything. Those limits have not vanished; programs that thrive are the ones that match augmentation to specific, recurring tasks like load carriage on slopes, repetitive lifting in depots, or long patrols that destroy knees.
China’s plateau advantage: logistics suits at the roof of the world
Where the United States seeks durable, general-purpose gains, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has emphasized environment-specific payoff, particularly along the Himalayan frontier. PLA units have repeatedly showcased passive and power-assisted exoskeletons designed to reduce fatigue during high-altitude patrolling and resupply. State-linked media and regional reporting detail distribution of mechanical suits to help troops carry ammunition, rations, and sensors in oxygen-starved conditions — exactly where every kilogram hurts twice as much. That focus on border logistics converts a flashy technology into a rational tool for a grinding mission.
Chinese industry also treats exoskeletons as a dual-use growth market. Civil and leisure variants (from rehab clinics to hiking “hip-assist” rigs) are scaling, creating a supplier base, cost learning, and user familiarity that defense programs can tap. The boundary between outdoor exosuits and military logistics aids is increasingly porous: shared motors, power electronics, torque sensors, and control software migrate across product lines as firms chase both export markets and military contracts.
Western analyses have begun to note the PLA’s messaging value as well. Photos and demo videos of troops in mechanical frames hauling crates and traversing snow signal not just capability, but intent: China wants adversaries to imagine a logistics tail that climbs higher, marches farther, and tires slower. Forbes reporting captured a January 2025 PLA showcase oriented explicitly around logistics — less “Iron Man,” more “human forklift” for border units. That is exactly where exoskeletons can score early, concrete wins.
Russia’s Ratnik dreams — and the reality of war
Russia’s soldier-modernization narrative has long included the Ratnik program and its teased Ratnik-3 “future soldier” suit, sometimes depicted with powered frames and active camouflage. In practice, as independent analysts have pointed out, much of this remains a mix of incremental kit upgrades, concept art, and limited prototypes rather than fielded, powered suits. There is value in passive braces that stiffen knees and transfer load, but the leap to rugged powered frames for dismounted combat has proven harder. The full-scale war in Ukraine magnifies that difficulty: sustaining delicate mechatronics at the front is a vastly different challenge from parading prototypes at expos.
At the same time, the war has been a catalyst elsewhere. In Ukraine’s defense tech ecosystem, small firms have been building low-cost robotics — including early exoskeleton efforts — guided by immediate battlefield needs. These projects are rough-and-ready, but they highlight a path to “good-enough” augmentation tailored to specific tasks like casualty evacuation or moving munitions — use cases where even semi-passive assistance can be decisive.
The political economy of robotic augmentation
Exoskeletons sit at the intersection of defense innovation, industrial policy, and national security screening. On one hand, the military has repeatedly “spun in” commercial wearable robotics to avoid bespoke, brittle defense-only supply chains. On the other hand, Washington has scrutinized cross-border investment and joint ventures in this sector, fearing leakage of know-how with potential military payoff. In 2020, U.S. scrutiny forced the unwinding of a California exoskeleton firm’s venture with Chinese investors — an emblematic case of how even rehab-market companies are now viewed through a dual-use lens.
Capital markets coverage shows why. Over the last decade, exoskeletons have moved from boutique rehab devices to factory aids and warehouse tools. As Bloomberg chronicled in the early 2010s, defense seed funding helped birth systems like HULC; then industrial users — from shipyards to automotive plants — began absorbing and refining the tech. That pathway makes exoskeletons unusually sensitive to export-control debates: the same knee-assist that helps a carmaker prevent injuries could help a border unit carry 30 more kilograms at 4,800 meters.
Why the U.S., China, and Russia care — different strategic logics
United States: The American logic starts with people, not gadgets. Infantry are still carrying too much. For the Army and Marines, the driver is musculoskeletal injury, retention, and small-unit endurance. The Air Force and Navy have more niche demands — munitions handling, aircraft maintenance, shipboard tasks. A device that cuts knee load on stairs or halves the metabolic cost of a long patrol is not glamorous, but across a brigade it can save knees, extend careers, and raise tempo. The Pentagon’s recent emphasis on “hyper-enabled operators” reflects the same pragmatism: combine targeted physical augmentation with sensors, AI assistants, and drones, rather than betting everything on a suit.
China: For Beijing, contested terrain gives exoskeletons a clear mission. Along the Line of Actual Control, altitude and cold punish troops; along long borders and remote outposts, humans remain the only “last mile” logistics asset. If exoskeletons shift the physiology in China’s favor — letting a squad haul more, faster, with fewer rotations — the payoff is immediate. Beijing also benefits from a domestic industrial base eager to flood civilian markets with adjacent products, keeping costs down and components local.
Russia: Moscow’s driver is narrative as much as function: the image of a hardened, modernized Russian infantryman wrapped in next-gen kit has propaganda value. Yet sanctions, budget constraints, and wartime attrition complicate any move from concept to robust, powered systems. Passive braces and modular load-sharing aids are achievable; rugged, maintainable power-assist across brigades is a taller order. Independent reporting has been blunt: there is a gap between Ratnik-3 imagery and fielded capability.
What works now (and why)
Three use cases dominate near-term adoption:
- Load carriage for dismounted troops and border patrols. Lower-body exoskeletons and soft exosuits that transfer or assist weight at the ankles and knees offer reliable metabolic savings, especially on grades. Militaries like them because they fit under armor and don’t force a new silhouette. PLA plateau kits and U.S. ONYX/Fortis trials sit in this lane.
- Ammunition and maintenance handling in depots, hangars, and ships. Industrial-style upper-body frames that hold tools or ammunition at chest height remove fatigue from repetitive work. They thrive off the battlefield — indoors, near power, with trained users. That’s why Navy/shipyard experiments and air base logistics demos keep resurfacing.
- Stabilization and rehab. Micro-tremor-damping braces like MAXFAS have narrow tactical payoffs; medical exoskeletons help wounded service members recover strength or ambulate, a moral and manpower imperative. The military-medical loop also seeds vendors and maintenance know-how that later supports tactical gear.
What still doesn’t (yet)
The obstacles are stubbornly physical. Power density limits untethered endurance; actuator efficiency limits torque without heat or noise; weight/bulk erode soldier acceptance; maintenance kills uptime in mud and ice. Defense reporters have flagged these realities for years, and they explain why “passive” or “soft” systems are beating rigid, fully powered suits to meaningful deployment. The lesson: if you can get 10–20% metabolic savings, every day, with something that survives rain, dust, and stairs, you win — even if nobody flies.
The geopolitics of exoskeletons
Exoskeletons will never dominate the order of battle like drones or precision fires, but they shape the “human logistics” that makes those systems work — how fast squads move, how quickly munitions flow, how many rotations a unit can endure. That matters most at margins: oxygen-starved borders, ruined stairwells in dense cities, long resupply slogs under fire. The strategic competition is therefore asymmetric. The U.S. is likely to field the broadest set of task-specific aids through dual-use convergence; China will optimize for altitude and frontier logistics; Russia will lean on cheaper passive aids while trying to preserve a narrative of high-tech modernization.
Export controls, investment reviews, and standards battles will follow. Who controls high-torque lightweight actuators? Who owns the battery chemistry and smart-fabric IP? CFIUS-type cases will recur, and even civilian exosuit start-ups will find themselves in the security spotlight. The technology is too obviously dual-use to be ignored and too incremental to be left to glossy power fantasies.
What to watch next
- Battery and controller breakthroughs ported from e-bikes and robotics.
- Biomechanics-aware AI that adapts assistance to gait and terrain on the fly.
- Doctrine experiments pairing exosuits with robotic mules and small drones — systems that together extend the range and pace of dismounted operations.
- Sustainment pipelines: the quiet determinant of whether battalions, not test squads, can rely on these devices daily.
If you’re expecting a headline when an army unveils a flawless battlesuit, you’ll keep waiting. If you look instead for boring, durable tools that make a human 10–30% better at grinding jobs, you’ll see the arms race clearly — and you’ll find the places where it could change the tempo of war.