About NATO 2099
Introducing "NATO 2099," a groundbreaking graphic novel born from the imaginative minds of 35 science fiction authors from across the Alliance. This novel distils their visions, projecting what NATO could look like in the future. We chose 2099 to coincide with NATO's 75th anniversary, using the reflection on the past 75 years as grounds to envision the next 75. Who better to chart this future than science fiction writers?
Readers will sense brewing conflicts as they journey to the moon with the heroine. The NATO Alliance of 2099 is resilient and expanded, but one that is grappling with the effects of climate change on security, the pervasive influence of AI, and space as a military, albeit war-free, domain. Drawing on common themes across 35 contributed pieces, each character in this graphic novel is deeply connected with personalized AI, leading healthier, more conscious lives.
Choosing the graphic novel format was a very deliberate choice. It is a means of humanizing an organization that is typically seen as an austere political-military alliance. A comic book is an accessible medium, especially for younger audiences who may not know much about NATO. But high-quality graphic novels like this one also appeal to older audiences too.
Science fiction is often dismissed as mere fantasy, but it has predictive power. “Collective imagination” is the term for the phenomenon whereby common themes in science fiction prefigure future realities. Technologies like the iPad, virtual reality, and sliding doors were all first imagined in works like Star Trek and The Matrix, and became commonly accepted before they became reality.
This shows that the future is not a predestined path, but a canvas shaped by our creativity. As such, "NATO 2099" offers a hopeful vision. This graphic novel should inspire readers to see the future as something we actively create, instilling hope that even if new challenges arise, we as an Alliance have the power to overcome them, and shape a better world.
Foreword
The future is never here – and yet, it always is. More than half of our waking moments are spent worrying, hoping, thinking about a time that is yet to come. In the military, this number might be even higher as our task is by definition to deter and prepare for worst-case scenarios.
And yet, as defence institutions we are not making enough use of the one genre that is the perfect fit for all these thoughts: science fiction. Often called the literature of ideas, scientifiction, speculative fiction or science fantasy, science fiction has been, for over 150 years (if not longer), the realm where humans play with innovation, think through the implications of technology, and imagine all sorts of disruptive events. When people dismissively say “that is science fiction”, they have it the wrong way around: science fiction is quite skilled at imagining things that can happen. Destination Moonbase Alpha, a 1970s series I marvelled at as a young man, featured flat screens, sliding doors and talking computers – none of which we find outrageous today. And while the lunar base in which it is set is yet to come, states around the world are feverishly working on it. Jules Verne, the French author, is no longer even widely viewed as a science fiction author as many of his predictions, from the submarine to the internet, have materialized.
It is precisely this predictive capability of science fiction we wanted to harness with NATO 2099. Written 75 years after the Alliance’s founding, and set 75 years into the future, it is a story that not only inspires, but also encourages us to face the challenges head on – what is called the Stockdale paradox. Named after US Navy Admiral Stockdale, it invites us to “never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” Put more amusingly and in the words of my favourite comic figures, Calvin and Hobbes: “The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present.” Facing this reality is the first step in shaping the future – after all, this is our role.
Max A.L.T. Nielsen,
Commandant NATO Defense College
Introduction
NATO 2099 is an adventure story – but making it, too, was an adventure. This graphic novel is not the idea of one person, but indeed, many: 35 authors from all over the Alliance contributed essays, science fiction stories from member states were consulted, and three lead authors weaved it all together and made it what it is today, a collectively imagined future for NATO.
That we chose to do this in a format currently even less used in Western defence circles than science fiction, i.e. the graphic novel, might be surprising, yet it makes perfect sense. Visualizing the future brings it to life even more than just words, which is precisely why the first science fiction comic appeared as early as 1929 in Amazing Stories, the American science fiction magazine. Today, the power of the drawn picture is harnessed by some also for military purposes – such as the US Army in its Army Game Studio, or Japan, which published its Defence White Paper also entirely as a manga. Russia, too, is now using comics for propaganda purposes in the context of its invasion of Ukraine. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, NATO officials are depicted rather unflatteringly in these books.) This renewed penchant for the drawn picture is that they are not “just” for children. In the United States, 25% of comic readers are baby boomers, and the overall market is set to grow substantially in the coming years as readers do not outgrow their comics, but take them along with them.
This story is therefore one for all ages: it tells the future beyond the future.
Florence Gaub,
Director Research Division