August Cole's Blog

Just like that the future is here… Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution is out today in print, e-book, and audio (which is a superb narration).

This year marks a decade since I left a career in journalism writing about the defense industry and other national security stories for The Wall Street Journal. Since then I have appreciated that the things we don’t do are as important as those we wholly commit ourselves to. This book is proof. And when we do push toward a seemingly far-off go...

In less than two weeks, BURN IN: A NOVEL OF THE REAL ROBOTIC REVOLUTION, goes on sale. Its been five years since GHOST FLEET came out and deepened my commitment to using narratives to explore the future of conflict. Using what Ive learned since, this is a new kind of novel, not only for me and my co-writer PW Singer but for the thriller genre and yes, it has endnotes. No question this is a challenging time for all of the publishing industry, and we are doing what we can to support our local...

Just as AI and robotics will transform warfare, these technologies will lead to profound changes in the defense industrial base. What might it look like, and what might it be called? How about the strategic innovation base?

Check out my new piece in DefenseOne with SparkCognition colleague Amir Husain:

Look across the Potomac River toward Rosslyn, where the corporate logos of government contractors crown a parade of office towers that follows the river past the Pentagon. The skyline, like Ame...

Earlier this year, I published a short story, OMEGA, co-written with Amir Husain, CEO and founder at SparkCognition. The narrative explores the nature of strategic surprise in the AI era, and how the US, as well as its European allies, might respond to such an upset in Europe. Exploring setbacks and failure is just one way such FICINT writing can help.

“Incoming!” shouted Piotr Nowak, a master sergeant in Poland’s Jednostka Wojskowa Komandosów special operations unit. Dropping to the ground,...

Right now NATO is in the midst of Trident Juncture, its largest military exercise in Norway since the Cold War. This is an exercise for a new era of warfare, featuring battlefield 3-D printing, tactical cyber ops, and remotely operated armed ground vehicles, among other technologies that have emerged in the decades since Tom Clancy and Larry Bond wrote RED STORM RISING.

But what if this was not an exercise, and Norway was indeed under threat from a dynamic and unconventional Russian incursion...

Thinking about the future is important. Thinking about the future from other perspectives than our own is critical. Especially when it comes to the impact of emerging technologies on conflict and security. I recently wrote an essay for the Royal United Services Institute Newsbrief with SparkCognition colleagues Amir Husain and Wendy R. Anderson that considers the internationalized context of artificial intelligence and its impact on transatlantic security. NATO faces many urgent fiscal, polit...

On the latest US Naval Institute podcast, I had a great time discussing my latest short story, AUTOMATED VALOR, with Proceedings Editor-in-Chief Bill Hamblet and Director of Outreach Ward Carroll. Set in the 2030s, the story follows British forces in an urban fight in Djibouti and asks fundamental questions about the essence of leadership in the era of artificial intelligence. The podcast also covered my motivations as a writer, how to establish a credible narrative in future worlds, my journ...

[image error]

The following is my new short story, AUTOMATED VALOR, that explores the future of urban warfare, autonomous weapons, citizenship, and the essence of combat leadership in the AI era – all from a non-US perspective. This story, kindly published by the US Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine, was commissioned by the British Army Concepts Branch to stoke dialogue and debate about force development and military operations in the 2030s. USNI also commissioned artist Alex Brady to illustrate the...

Russia’s next generation of strategic weaponry may be a bit more distant and a bit less fearsome than Vladimir Putin recently claimed. But his March 1 speech about titanic ballistic missiles and nuclear-powered undersea drones should spur American defense and technology communities to move faster — indeed, uncomfortably so — to embrace similarly disruptive ideas such as artificial intelligence and robotics.

Read more of my op-ed with Spark Cognition CEO Amir Husain at Defense One.

[image error]

SIXTH PLANET, HOTH SYSTEM – The tauntaun ran screaming across the crevasses and zig-zag trenches dug into Nev Ice Flow, fur singed black and gold and slathered in crimson.

A tauntaun doesn’t bleed red though. Rebel infantry does.

So starts the short story “When the Blood Runs Cold,” my contribution to the upcoming anthology STRATEGY STRIKES BACK: How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict,” due out in May from Potomac Books. It is an eye-witness news account of the Rebel retreat from Ho...