Armed forces in all countries try in one way or another to anticipate the nature of future warfare. This is not prediction but calculation of the future. Prediction envisions a specific picture. Calculating the future, by contrast, is based on the understanding that we do not know what will happen — but we can play through different scenarios. Interestingly, science fiction, or speculative fiction more broadly, can also be of assistance here.

The idea for this piece arose after I came across a dissertation defended at the Finnish National Defence University by Elina Hiltunen, titled "War Across Time and Into the Future: The Use of Science Fiction in Military Foresight" (Elina Hiltunen, "Sodasta ajassa ja tulevaisuudessa: science fictionin käyttö sotilaallisessa ennakoinnissa", 2025).

A large part of the dissertation is devoted to the concept and characteristics of time, particularly in a military context, as well as to human time perception, or perception in general. This is interesting in itself, since time perception is shaped by societal views, culture, and history. For this reason, understanding an adversary's culture is also extremely useful. In NATO, time is considered part of the non-physical battlespace, alongside science, the electromagnetic spectrum, and cyberspace.

Another interesting reminder is that for quite some time military operations have made use of various substances to enhance human capabilities and deceive the biological clock. For example, during the Winter War, the Finns used the methamphetamine preparation Pervitin.

I will focus on the use of science fiction writing in preparation for the military future. It may seem like merely a form of entertainment literature, yet at the same time it is one way of identifying the possibilities and threats that future technology may bring to society and to humanity. And it is used not only by governments, but also by businesses and military organizations.

The main emphasis is on exploring variants of the technological future. It is sometimes thought that science fiction writers can foresee the future, since many of the gadgets they have described have indeed come into use.

Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea from 1869 described an electrically powered submarine, which is now a reality. George Orwell's 1984 presented a vision of a society under mass surveillance, which today is a reality in several countries. There are many such examples, and there is even a website that has collected more than 2,500 examples of phenomena described in science fiction that later became reality.

Limiting ourselves to military affairs, science fiction — along with films — is used to gain an understanding of the possible nature of future wars and crises. Military organizations in Italy, Germany, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Brazil, for example, have used various scenarios and science fiction. NATO does this as well. Finland has long experience with forward-looking analysis; currently, this work is carried out by the doctrine department of the Defence Forces Research Agency. The phenomenon is not new: as early as 1928, the Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army published a report titled "The Future War."

Thus, visions of war and science fiction have long been connected. Science fiction is also part of our culture, and for that reason alone it influences military thinking. In the United States, science fiction has inspired various military technological solutions, and some of them have even been named after terms originating in science fiction. One need only mention the Jeep or the X-Wing. In addition, the US Army has used science fiction imagery in soldier recruitment and has produced topical video games. Allegedly, science fiction has influenced US military strategy and technological development since the 1960s.

The Israeli Defense Forces have also used science fiction as a foresight tool. In 2020, the French Army established a unit known as the Red Team. It consists of science fiction writers, artists, and graphic designers, and its task is to help those responsible for army strategy see possible threats to national security.

The involvement of artists is justified by the idea that they possess anarchic potential to create imagination-based material — especially material that breaks down the taboos of military leadership and brings to light things that military commanders may not be able to see. In addition, there is a White Team that monitors ethical issues, a Purple Team responsible for the scientific perspective, a Blue Team that considers how the army would respond to the threat scenarios proposed by the Red Team, and a Black Team, which acts as a support group.

The US Army, for its part, has a future-oriented program called the Mad Scientist Initiative, which can be explored on the Mad Scientist Lab website. In 2016, a science fiction writing contest was organized, with 150 submissions from ten countries. The result was the report "Science Fiction: Imagining the Future of Warfare 2030–2050," which included 20 selected stories. Similar science fiction competitions were also held in 2019 and 2021.

The Army Cyber Institute at West Point has focused, among other things, on producing graphic science fiction novellas, and between 2018 and 2023 it published 14 of them. These stories graphically depict visions of the future of war and conflict.

In 2023, the UK Ministry of Defence published a report titled "Stories from the Future: Exploring New Technology Through Useful Fiction." It contains eight stories addressing various technologies and the threats and opportunities associated with them, written by Peter Singer and August Cole. Cole, incidentally, uses the title "Atlantic Council futurist" and also speaks about the concept of FICINT, in which literature and intelligence are combined to produce evidence-based future scenarios.

In 2016, NATO published a report titled "Visions of Warfare 2036," which presents 12 visions of future warfare. The most recent NATO publications related to science fiction come from the NATO Defense College, which in 2024 published three pieces that can be read as science fiction. One of them imagines NATO in the year 2099. In addition, a comic book titled "NATO 2099" has been published, as well as a set of near-future scenarios that leave science fiction aside and instead focus on geopolitical threats.

In conclusion, science fiction has a well-established place in the development of military thought. It helps break routines in both thinking and planning, and it can also be used to influence political decision-makers.

References for interested readers

• visions-of-warfare-2036.pdf
• NATO 2099 – The Science Fiction Anthology
• How the US Military Uses Sci-Fi to Imagine the Future of War
• Inventions and Ideas from Science Fiction Books and Movies at Technovelgy.com
• Mad Scientist Laboratory – Exploring the Operational Environment

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