Speculative Fiction: NATO 2099

In this episode, Alice interviews Dr Florence Gaub, Director of the Research Division at the NATO Defense College in Rome. A security expert and futurist, she has held key positions such as deputy director at the EU Institute for Security Studies, foresight advisor at the EU Council, and special advisor to EU Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič. Beginning her career at NATO’s Middle East Faculty in 2009, Florence now focuses on strategic foresight and geopolitical trends. Her publications include the bestseller Zukunft: Eine Bedienungsanleitung (2023 – soon to be published in English as Future: A Manual), the EU’s Global Trends to 2030 (2019), and The Cauldron: NATO’s Libya Operation (2018). Florence serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Complex Risks and is a member of the World Science Fiction Society; and last year, she published a graphic novel, NATO 2099, which we discuss in this episode.

To get us started, Florence outlines the work of the Research Division at the NATO Defence College, and we discuss the challenges of looking beyond known and predictable futures. We reflect on the fast pace of change across many domains today, and our collective experience of 'future shock' as we grapple with many different kinds of uncertainty and transition at one time. Florence discusses some of the ways in which war in particular is being transformed, pointing to cognitive warfare, biological warfare and grey war, where distinctions between military and civilian spheres of action become blurred. 

This leads us to consider the tools we can cultivate to predict the unpredictable. We chat about the power of boredom in prompting us to pay attention to 'weak signals' and the role of imagination in visualising future scenarios. Florence stresses the importance of creative methods, both to foster and to communicate futures thinking. She discusses some of her own initiatives in this space, such as the creation of 'newspapers from the future'; and we delve deep into her graphic novel NATO 2099, which transports readers to a world that our children and grandchildren might inhabit, prompting us to reflect on both technological and human methods of prediction. 

We hope you enjoy the episode! For a version of our podcast with close captions, please use this link. For more information about individuals and their projects, please visit the University of St Andrews' Visualising War website and the Ancient Peace Studies Network.

Music composed by Jonathan Young
Sound mixing by Zofia Guertin