One of our colleagues here at the Institute for Future Conflict, Dr. Layne Hancock, likes to greet new USAFA cadets unfamiliar with our work with, “Are you interested in future conflict? Because future conflict is interested in you.” In addition to being a pithy line, it happens to be true: the old and set ways of war fade away with every innovative drone strike by Ukraine, with every new wave of cyber and information attacks across the Pacific.
Fiction is a key, but often overlooked, tool in preparing leaders, decision-makers and thinkers for what future wars may look like. Whether it was H.G. Wells writing about the atomic bomb in 1914 or William Gibson coining the term “cyberspace” in his fiction and envisioning its manifold possibilities decades before the spread of the internet, fiction writers have consistently transcended the established limits of warfighting.
Here are eight contemporary books on future conflict worth a thinking reader’s time and energy.
2034, 2054, and 2084, by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis
An intriguing mix of geopolitical thriller and cautionary tale, this trilogy of future-conflict books is loosely connected and uses everyday characters (military and civilian) to build out its terrifying possibilities. The wide mixture of duties and roles of the characters may well reflect the backgrounds of its co-authors: Ackerman served as an infantry and special operations officer in the Marines and fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah, and Stavridis spent 37 years in the U.S. Navy, retiring as a four-star admiral after a stint as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe. The gold standard of the genre.
Emergency Skin, by N.K. Jemisin
Always one of my USAFA cadets’ favorite assigned readings, this Amazon original novelette won a Hugo Award in 2020. Set in a future where a splinter group of humans have built a society on another planet, our unnamed protagonist returns to earth for supplies—and is shocked to discover life has continued on the home planet. Hard questions about overreliance on AI, the nature of duty and what makes a human being fundamentally human are paired with lively storytelling by one of America’s best contemporary science-fiction writers.
The Last Good Man, by Linda Nagata
I first encountered this excellent novel after doing a War on the Rocks podcast with Nagata and tore through her book the following week. At once character-driven and atmospheric with a near-future dystopian bent, an outmoded (but not over-the-hill!) helicopter pilot joins a private military company that’s hyper-fixated on autonomous weapons platforms and surveillance. Whatever technological advancements are made, though, both in the world of this novel and in ours, the act of war remains a human enterprise—and it is humans, flawed and contradictory and messy as we are, who bear its lasting consequences.
White Sun War, by Major General Mick Ryan
Is a war for Taiwan winnable? That’s the central question retired Australian Major General Mick Ryan sought to both explore and answer in his debut novel, another recurring favorite of USAFA cadets. Similar to 2034 and Ghost Fleet in its macro-geopolitical framework, White Sun War rotates between characters and perspectives to form a mosaic narrative. There’s an added layer here, as well, due to Ryan being a career Australian military officer—as one of our USAFA cadets observed during a Zoom Q&A with General Ryan, he’s able to see the U.S. military’s strengths and weaknesses in a unique way. That uniqueness benefits both Ryan’s writing and storyline, and there are rumblings that have reached us here at the IFC of a White Sun War sequel on the way.
Ghost Fleet and Burn-In, by P.W. Singer and August Cole
Like 2034, Ghost Fleet revolves around a theoretical clash in the Pacific between the United States and China, though the story and writing carry a more technical bent. Its sequel, Burn-In, focuses on what potential overreliances on robots, technology and AI might well look like in the near-future. The coauthors of these books also partnered to form the company “Useful Fiction,” which champions the importance of compelling narrative in strategic thought and decisions.
Matt Gallagher is the Writer-in-Residence of the Institute for Future Conflict at the US Air Force Academy. He is the author of four books, including the novels Daybreak and Youngblood, a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His work has appeared in Esquire, ESPN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Paris Review, and Wired, among other places.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the US Air Force, Defense Department, or the US government.