In this episode of Building the Base, Hondo Geurts and Lauren Bedula sit down with August Cole, strategist, author, and futurist who has spent his career exploring fiction's role in national security strategy. Drawing from his journey from Wall Street Journal journalist covering defense and technology to co-authoring the groundbreaking novel Ghost Fleet with Peter Singer, Cole discusses how fiction can help leaders avoid strategic surprise and failure of imagination. As Ghost Fleet celebrates its 10-year anniversary, Cole reflects on the book's impact on defense thinking, the power of scenario planning through storytelling, and why "useful fiction" has become an essential tool for wargaming future conflicts in an era of exponential technological change.

Five key takeaways from today's episode:

1. Fiction serves as a strategic tool to avoid failure of imagination, with Cole noting that "we really can fall victim to failure of imagination with catastrophic consequences, and even more so today when so many technologies are exponential in their impact on warfare."
2. Ghost Fleet combines rigorous research with narrative storytelling, grounded in "30 or so pages of endnotes" from open-source research including doctrine, patents, and scholarship to make the speculative scenario credible and actionable for defense leaders.
3. Strategic fiction gives leaders permission to think differently, as Cole explains that fiction provides "a safe space to explore ideas that might otherwise be dismissed" and helps overcome organizational resistance to uncomfortable futures.
4. The power of story transcends traditional analysis, with Cole emphasizing that narrative allows people to "see problems from someone else's perspective" and makes complex strategic concepts accessible across organizational hierarchies.
5. Invest in skills that make you a better collaborator, as Cole advises the next generation to focus on "the human dimension" including empathy, foreign languages, and technical literacy while resisting pressure to follow conventional career paths.