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

by Steve Feldstein

'An obligatory read for anyone who wants to understand the new forces shaping the future.' Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer-prize winning, New York Times bestselling author of Autocracy, Inc. and Twilight of Democracy.

'Couldn't be more timely. Mixes story-telling and analysis to illuminate the new technological arms race.' Peter Pomerantsev author of Nothing is True and Everything is Possible

When it comes to global dominance, military technology has always been a major geopolitical driver. For decades, the West set the rules on innovation using soft power and government funding to develop its own exclusive cutting-edge defensive capabilities. But in the digital era, the breakthroughs - be it AI systems and autonomous drones, satellite internet or advanced semiconductors - are coming from private companies, not government labs.

In Bytes and Bullets, Steve Feldstein explains how technology is transforming geopolitics, upending the ways that countries compete, and how they wage war. Through captivating stories and original field research, he shows how the West's dominance is being undercut at every turn by a combination of commercialization, authoritarian convergence led by China and Russia, and the emergence of new regional powers hungry for more influence.

A new tech cold war is coming into focus fast and restrictions and sanctions are no longer enough to maintain international stability. Feldstein reports from its front line in this rich and at times alarming account of this pivotal moment in history, making an urgent call for the West to act now, or risk losing its international standing forever.

Genres: War, Technology, Politics, Military Fiction, Nonfiction, Science, Business

392 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 8, 2026

About the author

Steve Feldstein is a director and senior fellow of the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 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 was published by St. Martin's Press in September 2026.

Feldstein is also 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 military AI, drones and geopolitics, 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.

Reviews

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

My main takeaway from this well-researched, informative book is that a significant power shift is underway, and it's one of our own making.
In the past, the US government funded military research at US universities and kept the resulting innovations close. It would take focused, covert operations for other countries to get hold of the blueprints to our military innovations before we were ready to sell or share them. But that all changed when universities like Stanford Business School started spinning off startups. When such startups needed funding, it was not difficult for foreign governments to get in on the ground floor of US innovation. Now that many of our military contracts are outsourced to private companies, the government has only a modicum of influence on how those businesses operate. In other words, private companies can (and often will) sell to the highest bidder, or to opposing sides, so long as their shareholders are happy.
Feldstein uses the advent of drones on the battlefield to illustrate his points, tracing the evolution of their use, where drones (and their components) are manufactured, and how that has been changing the balance of global power. This is not a very political book: He traces some of today's problems back to Bush and Clinton, but he does point out that our situation is more precarious today due to the incumbent. Significant time is also spent on the Russia vs. Ukraine war and how military one-upmanship is playing out faster than ever due to the speed of innovation.
There were several times when information was repeated, as if the chapters were from different essays or addresses given on different occasions that needed to reference some core information. This aside, I found the audiobook engaging and the material interesting and sobering, especially with the ongoing advances in AI.
My thanks to the author, publisher, @MacmillanAudio, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook of #BytesandBullets for review purposes. Happy publication day! It is now available.

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 2.75 out of 5]

This book reads a lot like the stuff I used to read about how Japan was going to take over American. This book focuses on how China is taking over everything.

If you are not familiar with what happened with Japan, I'll put it under a spoiler since it is a side issue." I remember reading a book by a Libertarian (whose name escapes me at the moment) who focused on how Japan was poised to take us over economically. It had a lot of facts. Some good conjecture, and some propaganda. Most of it never happened, but you can see some of the aftermath of the Japanese yen overpowering the dollar at the time: Columbia Pictures was bought by Sony in 1989. Firestone Tires is owned by a Japanese company, etc. It's not horrifying, but a lot of people were freaking out at the time. A number of fiction books and movies came out that featured this theme of the Japanese taking over:

"Debt of Honor" by Tom Clancy [1994] Thriller. A Japanese businessman schemes to disrupt the American economy, start a war and invade another country. I learned a lot about economics in this book.

"Rising Sun" by Michael Crichton [1992] Murder Mystery. A woman is found murdered at a posh party given by a Japanese corporation and the Japanese try to pin the murder on someone who didn't do it... to protect someone else... except that he didn't do it either. In the process they attempt to influence the police investigation though carefully made donations and blackmail. There is a lot of commentary on the foolishness of selling your country to foreign investors.

"Rising Sun" the movie [1993] starring Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery was made after it was clear that the Japanese economy was on a downturn, so that tended to mute the commentary made in the book.

"Gung Ho" [1986] A comedy starring Michael Keaton. A failing automobile factory is bought by a Japanese company with Japanese management. The Americans balk at the change in style and what is required of them. This cultural clash is the source of the comedy. I am told that this film is used by Toyota to teach their executives how NOT to manage Americans.

See also "The Lost Decades" article on Wikipedia. The Japanese economy began to stagnate starting in 1991 and continued to languish for decades thereafter. As of this writing it is still nothing like it was when it was a powerhouse.


I think there is no question that China is on an upswing. Where it will lead is anyone's guess. The author makes an educated guess and warns that America is giving away the store. I'm not sure how one can stop that. Also, the author seems to think that everything President Trump does is terrible, while what President Biden and President Obama did was ill-advised. Had the author been as objective with Trump as he was with Biden and Obama (and various dictators and thugs) I would have rated this book higher. But it wasn't objective.

The facts the author presented seem to match what I know of the situation. I'm just not agreeing with the conclusions. One could get a summary of the whole book by simply reading the final chapter. He doesn't say any more than that. The rest of the book could be used as a reference.

[ManOfLaBook.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

To read the Margin Notes: The Speed of Modern War vs. Bureaucratic Systems, more reviews and bookish posts visit: https://www.ManOfLaBook.com

Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalries, Big Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare by Steve Feldstein is a profound exploration of how cutting-edge, as well as commercial off the shelf (COTS) technologies are rewriting the rules of national security and warfare itself. Mr. Feldstein is a published author, former State Department official, and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

An interesting, well-researched, compelling and somewhat unsettling audiobook. This day and age, private high-tech companies can sell software and hardware to the highest bidder, making the superpowers lose the technological edge they've worked for decades to build. These technologies could be dual-use and difficult to contain.

Bytes and Bullets by Steve Feldstein illustrates through fascinating case studies how regional conflicts were reshaped by accessible technology, and remote technologies redefined wars. But technology doesn't have to be expensive Nvidia chips, it could be cheap drones from Amazon which can have just as much impact.

Narrator Patrick Cavanaugh makes this book, which is mainly geopolitical analysis, exciting as any adventure novel. He's easy to listen to and delivers a sharp and authoritative reading matching the tone of the book.

The narratives weaves between historical context, tech forensics, and field reporting flawlessly. I especially enjoyed the way the author traces policy decisions from one administration to the next, or the previous ones which, I thought, added a lot of context to a world where memes many get their news from useless memes. And unfortunately I'm talking about reports as well.

The fact that we live in a world of commercialized, open-source technology means that the tech superpowers cannot simply block our geopolitical rivals in this aspect. Even if we could, modern warfare depends on fielding cheap technological weapons (ex: drones) just as much as those that it took decades to build. In fact, using shooting down a $400 drone with a $50,000 missile is becoming just a war of attrition.

The audiobook delivers a gripping, story-driven narrative told by an author who understands technology and policy and is able to put them in historical and current context. The battles to field technology and rule cyberspace are already being fought, not just in the filed but also in boardrooms and legislative bodies.

[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.

[Arathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a difficult book to get through mainly because of the doomerism I'm feeling about the state of the world. This only contributed to it, but doesn't at all mean it's a bad book. In fact, we should all be reading this to go into the future with our eyes open.

I feel like I knew the general idea of how things work, but this book gave me many specifics, which made things worse for me existentially. It's a comprehensive book about complex, interconnected, unsettling topics.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

[Henry Davis IV · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although this book covers some very relevant and timely topics for the technology industry as a whole and firms supporting the U.S. Government in particular, unfortunately it's highly partisan political stance and lack of adding any significant research or insight into the topic makes this a poor work on the subject. If you haven't read about this topic, then it's a good overview. If you have, you'll hear a lot of repeated material as the author substitutes quoting everyone else's research for actually adding something of value himself.

[Courtney V · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so incredibly well-written and richly detailed. Thank you so much for the advanced copy/giveaway and I'm glad I was able to get informed on the current aspects of technological warfare! It's scary, but it's important to stay knowledgeable on pressing topics.

[Doe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, very informative