Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalries, Big Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare

by Steve Feldstein

400 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication September 8, 2026

About the author

Steve Feldstein is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program. His research focuses on technology and geopolitics, U.S. foreign policy, war, and democracy.

Feldstein's new book, Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalry, Private Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare will release September 8, 2026 by St. Martin’s Press.

Feldstein is the author of The Rise of Digital Repression: How Technology is Reshaping Power, Politics, and Resistance, which was the recipient of the 2023 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order.

He has published research on digital technology’s impact on war, the role of artificial intelligence is reshaping repression, the geopolitics of technology, China’s advancing digital authoritarianism, and new patterns of internet shutdowns.

He has served in senior foreign policy roles at the U.S. Department of State, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. He was also the holder of the Frank and Bethine Church Chair of Public Affairs at Boise State University.

He is a graduate of Princeton University and Berkeley Law. He was born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Geopolitics, the economy, war, and technological advancement are far more complex than most of us can imagine, and far more intertwined than we’d like to admit. Bytes and Bullets is a dense, comprehensive look at the current state of the world and the ways dual-use technologies (technologies with consumer and military applications) are shaping the future we are all going to live in.

Whether it’s FPV drones changing the battlefield in Ukraine, remote AI-assisted assassinations in the Middle East, or China gaining ground in the global AI race by rapidly following and adapting the work of U.S. firms, the implications are staggering. It is genuinely insane to realize that technology I could buy off the shelf at Best Buy, or license from a website, is helping change the trajectory of our future as a species.

I won’t pretend this was a “fun” read. It is dense, detailed, and often unsettling. But it is also necessary. If you are even remotely interested in where the world is headed with AI, drones, cloud infrastructure, and modern conflict, you should give this a read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

[Doe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, very informative