Peter Singer is not only a best-selling author, but he has also been described by the Wall Street Journal as the “premiere futurist in the national-security environment”. No author has more books on the professional military reading lists.
I was inspired to reach out to Peter after reading his 2015 book “Ghost Fleet”. Ghost Fleet is a fictional novel that describes World War III. He shares that several Admirals at the Pentagon read “Ghost Fleet” and began to ask questions about whether things in his book could happen. (Turns out they could.)
The popularity of the book led Peter and his co-author August Cole to create the Useful Fiction Group. Their objective to is make innovations more easier to absorb and comprehend by putting them in fictional stories. Interestingly, any technology or weapons systems that appear in “useful fiction” must already be in existence or in prototype stage. All are publicly sourced.
Strategies we have seen deployed in Ukraine and Israel’s war clearly show how war is being waged is undergoing seismic change. Ghost Fleet features technology deployed in several battle spaces, from space to cyber warfare. The book also touches on the rise of private military companies and their increasing role in modern conflict.
We discuss how cyber warfare and AI allows smaller nations to compete with much more powerful opponents. “This is making apex predators wonder if they are now the prey.” Peter emphasizes the many of these emerging disruptive technologies have extremely low barriers to entry.
Some experts have warned about the potential of a “Cyber Pearl Harbor.” Peter discusses how our increasing dependence on technology and networks also raises the potential for threats.
Peter provides his perspective on our nation’s top vulnerabilities. They include a failure fully embrace disruptive technologies on a proper scale. He also believes that we don’t pay sufficient attention to vulnerabilities that come with new technologies. Lastly, he feels the current divisions in our nation also create potential weaknesses.