PODCAST: A Novelist and a Historian Walk Into a Bar

War on the Rocks

News, Politics

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2015

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today's podcast, John Amble talks to August Cole of the Atlantic Council's Art of Future Warfare project and B.J. Armstrong, a historian and naval officer, about how we approach the critical task of forecasting the future of warfare. In the discussion, we examine the comparative merits of history and fiction as sources of lessons with which to understand, make predictions about, and prepare for warfare in the future. Somewhat sadly, this podcast's title isn't entirely accurate. This is one of those rare War on the Rocks podcasts that we did not record over drinks. I trust you'll make up for our shortcoming in this respect by imbibing on our behalf while you listen. Buy August's book, Ghost Fleet, and B.J.'s book, 21st Century Sims. B.J.'s opinions, of course, do not represent those of the U.S. Navy or the Department of Defense. Photo credit: k rupp (adapted by WOTR)

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is John Amble here recording another podcast for War on the Rocks.
0:07.0	We are at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. today.
0:11.0	I have two guests with me.
0:12.0	One is August Cole, who is the director of the Art of
0:15.1	Future Warfare program here at the Atlantic Council and is co-author of the
0:19.8	recently released science fiction book Ghost Fleet which is doing very well.
0:25.0	Welcome August.
0:26.0	Thank you.
0:27.0	And B.J Armstrong, who's a Navy officer, also reading First Ph.D. at King's College London and
0:32.0	is the editor of the 21st Century Foundation
0:35.3	series at the Naval Institute Press. And the reason that we have two people with
0:39.8	kind of I guess slightly different backgrounds, one a historian, one a science fiction author, is because of a quote that I recently heard that I thought would make for the interesting premise for a discussion.
0:51.0	And the quote was from an economist at, I believe at Harvard, named Larry Katz, who
0:57.4	said, talking in kind of a different context, but said that I like history and I like science
1:02.2	fiction, but I think history is a more reliable guide to the future.
1:05.0	I think there are some people, to some extent maybe might disagree with that, but I think it's a very interesting premise
1:11.0	whether we should be learning
1:12.8	lessons primarily from history or from fiction and sort of imaginative ways of
1:18.2	looking at the future and how warfare is going to look kind of going in the
1:22.4	future. So with that as kind of the
1:24.9	introduction I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you August having just published this book
1:30.0	that was out last month June 30th so just out a few a few weeks and is doing very well as I said
	...

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