1. Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 21:198–208
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN 1040-2659 print; 1469-9982 online
DOI: 10.1080/10402650902915177
Imag(in)ing Tomorrow’s Wars and
Weapons
CHARLES E. GANNON
Although many critics and analysts have, with good reason, challenged
the proposition that science fiction can actually influence the future, it
is interesting to note that one of the most conservative and skeptical of
all discursive communities, the military, has repeatedly acted on exactly
that presumption. Indeed, advanced projects administrators in
America’s armed forces have employed future war authors to work in
direct advisory capacities at the very highest levels of their technology
assessment and development projects. Since 2007, a science fiction think
tank—Sigma—has (as a group or as select individuals) been directly
solicited for its counsel and perspectives by agencies as diverse as the
Army, the Air Force, the Department of Homeland Security, North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and several other agencies that
forbade disclosure of their identities.
S uch overt utilization of science fiction authors as sources of advice
or ideas naturally invites a cautious investigator to question whether
these authors are predicting or making the future. In short, do these
authors foresee the shape of the coming battlefield, thereby informing
those who will one day fight upon it, or do they help to ‘‘create’’ that
battlefield through their cultural and technological influence?
Naturally, the most likely answer is that both processes are at work,
in varying degrees, at all times.
A clear and early example of this can be found in the career of
Robert A. Heinlein, arguably the father of military SF in America. An
Annapolis graduate with various technical accomplishments, Heinlein
was involved with special Naval projects during World War II, which
allowed him to keep his finger on the pulse of advanced military
Portions of this essay are excerpted from Rumors of War and Infernal Machines: Technomilitary
Agenda Setting in American and English Speculative Fiction by Charles E. Gannon (First edition:
Liverpool University Press [Liverpool, U.K.], 2003; Second edition: Rowman and Littlefield, Inc.,
[Boulder, CO, Lanham, MA], 2005). Reprinted with Permission.
198

2. IMAG(IN)ING TOMORROW’S WARS AND WEAPONS 199
thought and ambitions, and kept him connected with senior officers
whose interests were almost as speculative and extrapolative as his own.
Heinlein recruited a number of fellow science fiction writers to work on
the Philadelphia Naval Yard projects, doing so under the auspices of
his old Annapolis classmate, Lieutenant Commander (later Admiral) A.
B. Scoles. This community of writers included L. Sprague de Camp, Isaac
Asimov, and in an ex-officio role, Murray Leinster. Heinlein himself is
said to have either worked, or was consulted, on projects as diverse as
radar, the Kamikaze countermeasures study, and materials development
for hypersonic aircraft. There is also considerable evidence that Heinlein
worked on a number of advanced weapons systems, including anti-missile
missiles and weapon automation: in short, even his military research work
was the stuff of which future war fiction is made.
Heinlein’s involvement with the military and aerospace commu-
nities persisted after the war ended, and honors from, and invitations
to, the nation’s premier technomilitary centers and special demonstra-
tions became commonplace. He was a distinguished civilian guest on
board the flight of an early version of the B-1 bomber, was invited to
deliver the 1972 James Forrestal Memorial lecture at Annapolis, and
received the Distinguished Public Service Medal from the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (posthumously).
Given the respect accorded Heinlein by military professionals, it is
hardly surprising that they demonstrated similar esteem for—and
consultations with—other, comparable ‘‘hard’’ SF authors. Over the
decades, however, these early, almost opportunistic patterns of
interaction and exchange became increasingly prevalent and intensely
codified. By the 1980s, the relationship between the science fiction and
military communities had become one not merely of overt common
interest, cooperation, and occasional consultancy, but had evolved into
joint, institutionalized future war ‘‘think tanks.’’
T here are numerous examples of this trend toward official
integration of military and science fiction discourses. In 1985, a
meeting called ‘‘Futurist II’’ was held at Wright Patterson Air Force
Base, which brought together at least forty specialists in future war and
weaponry—of which eight were future war authors. This meeting, a
successor to the top-secret ‘‘Futurist I’’ conference, addressed issues of
weapons development and potential combat scenarios. It also explored
the social implications of war and peace-making. Science fiction author
Joe Haldeman, one of the invitees, later wrote that ‘‘We saw the future
there…’’ and that the writers and the soldiers were, in many ways, cut
from the same cloth—much more so than the futurists, whom
Haldeman describes as being ‘‘stodgy and conservative.’’

3. 200 CHARLES E. GANNON
This account of the interactions between SF writers and the
military R&D community is echoed by the senior governmental
participants in the meetings, such as Stan Goddard, who was a section
head with the Defense Advanced Research and Planning Agency
(DARPA) at the time, and credits science fiction writers with playing a
large role in sparking official interest in individual-scaled light
amplification and thermal imaging technology, as well as electro-
magnetic (or ‘‘coil’’) guns as an alternative armament for surface
warships. More recently, but prior to the creation of Sigma, science
fiction authors had become a regular feature at the Air Force
Academy’s Nexus lecture series, and Joe Haldeman and others were
tapped for their expertise by the research and planning team that
compiled the Air University’s 1996 white paper, ‘‘Airforce 2025.’’
A slightly different, and rather enduring, example of future war
authors serving as expert consultants and commentators was initiated
at the January 1986 conference on small arms held by the Army
Joint Services Small Arms Program (JSSAP) at the Battelle Institute
in Seattle. Science fiction author Frederick Pohl attended, as well as
Dean Ing and other future war fiction writers. What is particularly
interesting about the JSSAP meetings (of which two were held as
recently as 2008) is the subject itself: small arms development, which
is not particularly amenable to ‘‘generalist’’ input and is, rather, a
highly specialized process driven by the prevailing limits of
technology and a sophisticated understanding and projection of the
likely evolution of small unit tactics. By implication, the degree of
military expertise, or at least topical interest, of any attending science
fiction authors would need to be relatively high for them to be of
any use to the military.
In order to establish a complete model of how future war authors
and texts come to enter and influence domains of official discourse, it
would be prudent to propose the pathways whereby they first inspire or
impress the experts within those domains. Once again, Heinlein’s
writing offers an excellent example of how this might occur.
Arguably, in terms of pertinent narrative content, publication
history, and plentiful technologically significant ‘‘prognostications’’ no
future war text can rival Robert A. Heinlein’s 1959 novel Starship
Troopers. With considerable accuracy, Starship Troopers graphically
and specifically anticipated personal military equipment and weapons
that are the equivalent of (or still well beyond) today’s most advanced
systems. Heinlein also foresaw how these diverse technologies would
combine to create a radically new battlefield: one that was fluid,
electronic, and largely automated.

4. IMAG(IN)ING TOMORROW’S WARS AND WEAPONS 201
In the first twenty pages of Starship Troopers, Heinlein’s narrator
employs the proleptic analogs of many of today’s cutting edge or
experimental technologies in a desperate urban firefight, demonstrating:
a personal head’s up display (HUD) slaved to a (laser?) rangefinder, GPS
equivalent, and personal computer; battlefield 3-D graphics computers connected
to a broadcast or satellite network; flip-up, flip-down night vision goggles;
personal self-guided (i.e.; ‘fire-and-forget’) missiles; multi-plexing communica-
tions with secure and encrypted channel redundancy; real-time two-way
communication with rear area/staff analysts; and a powered exo-skeletal frame
that receives commands directly through biomechanical feedback sensors.
The actual analogs of these revolutionary pieces of equipment are only
now being developed for standard adoption, are still prototypes, or are
evolving slowly in the computers of designers.
First generation equivalents of the personal communications,
sensors, computing, and interface technologies that Heinlein proposes
underwent intensive field trials in the Land Warrior project conducted
under the auspices of the U.S. Army. With that project now rolled into the
Army’s more expansive Future Force Warrior initiative, even the
‘‘powered armor’’ of the Starship Troopers is edging its way gradually
into serious discussions, and hence, on to designers’ boards. Almost ten
years ago, DARPA put forth a technology development initiative entitled
‘‘Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation,’’ which is driven
by the recognition that on today’s battlefield, as on Heinlein’s, the key to
survival is speed, not protection. Anticipating current personal armor
design doctrine, Heinlein’s suit is not designed to be invulnerable to
serious direct attacks, but is only intended to provide adequate protection
against shrapnel, blast effects, and even lower-velocity bullets. Most
importantly, however, ‘‘Our suits give us better eyes, better ears, stronger
backs (to carry heavier weapons and more ammo), better legs, more
intelligence … more firepower, greater endurance, less vulnerability.’’
One can only wonder if the exoskeleton researchers at DARPA
cribbed their copy from Heinlein when they wrote:
The overall goal of this program is to develop devices and machines that will
increase the speed, strength, and endurance of soldiers in combat environ-
ments. … Inclusion of exoskeleton technology into land based operations will
extend the mission payload and/or mission range of the soldier. Exoskeletons
will also increase the lethality and survivability of ground troops for short
range and special operations.
Heinlein’s new hardware is only half of his future war story: his
descriptions, both of combat and training, primarily emphasize that

5. 202 CHARLES E. GANNON
war and warriors will—indeed, must—be forever changed as a result of
these innovations. This has made Starship Troopers the most oft-cited
work of fiction in the tracts of military planners at all levels, from the
architects of the 1980s Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), right
down to Marine captains who are promoting the evolution of smaller,
faster, more elite combat units.
N one of the technologies depicted by Heinlein existed in 1959, but
they have been shaping readers’ expectations ever since: Starship
Troopers has never been out of print. Given the extraordinary similarity
between the technologies proposed in Starship Troopers and those
currently in use or development, it seems that Heinlein was expert at
extrapolating how the technology of 1959 would evolve. Heinlein may
also have influenced the evolution of such technologies by creating an
exacting, if purely imaginary, portrayal of their future development. It
is easy enough to propose a model for this: contemporary 1959
technologies enabled Heinlein to envision vastly evolved offshoot
devices. Heinlein then located these advanced devices within a
narrative, giving them a ‘‘pseudo-reality’’ via imaginary, but empirically
consistent, technological and sensory details. Finally, readers of this
narrative, particularly those who were willing to suspend disbelief and
accept the ‘‘pseudo-reality’’ of the advanced devices, had an image of
what technologies might one day be created. The specificity of the
image imparts a form of solidity to any projected device. It also
privileges the device in the memory of readers, for amid the almost
infinite field of other possible technological developments, this one has
been given shape, weight, color, operating parameters, even limitations
and quirks: a set of discrete properties that may become a murmuring
voice at the back of those minds that are looking into the next
generation of technological advancement. Whether an exact dupli-
cate—or even vaguely corresponding analog—of such a device results
from this form of influence is not the point: that the image has the
power to influence those who direct techno-military research is all that
is implied by this model.
In gathering evidence that might confirm or disprove this
hypothesis, I interviewed a number of industry insiders including, on
March 7, 1996 in St. Louis, Missouri, Jerry McClellan, McDonnell-
Douglas’ Chief Program Engineer for incorporating new technologies
into the F-18 fighter aircraft. It was understood that Mr. McClellan
might have to defer questions that touched on classified matters: this
limitation arose frequently—and at extremely telling moments.
Mr. McClellan was an avid reader of future war fiction, whether
of the hard science fiction or technothriller variety, remarking that of

6. IMAG(IN)ING TOMORROW’S WARS AND WEAPONS 203
800–1,000 books in his bookcase, ‘‘Probably 70–80 percent of those are
science fiction.’’ His greatest interest was in ‘‘hard’’ science fiction; a
writer’s credentials as either a scientist or a painstaking researcher were
very important to him, both in his choice of favorite authors and in the
credence he accorded their ideas. McClellan noted that his level of
interest and his choice of favorite topics within future war fiction are
not particularly unusual among workers within his industry, stating
that ‘‘about 25–30 percent’’ of his colleagues had ‘‘roughly the same’’
degree of interest in the same kind of literature. The interview explored
what he himself had observed regarding the presence of SF in the
course of carrying out his job as an engineer for advanced/new systems.
When asked if he had seen ‘‘operational capacities’’ (rather than the
underlying technologies), that started as science fiction but later became
‘‘reality,’’ McClellan answered, ‘‘Yeah, definitely some of that … I
definitely see that going on.’’ Although he could not give details
because of the classified nature of the work, he had witnessed changes
that were first postulated as science fiction and agreed with the
hypothesis that science fiction images set goals, start areas of inquiry,
and shape responses. He also confirmed that he personally had
imported ideas from narratives to the actual workplace but that they
had ‘‘all wound up in the classified world.’’
Responding to a question about whether or not he thought there
was a ‘‘predictive’’ component to science fiction, McClellan remarked
that he had never really thought of science fiction as prediction. Instead
he considered it be a ‘‘kind of cause-and-effect’’ with abstract creative
‘‘hard core’’ science fiction writers creating the vision and ‘‘coming up
with wild ideas—something that no one has thought of before’’ and
then ‘‘the more logical but creative class of people, the engineers, that
don’t seem to be capable of making that leap into … the abstract, but
once someone exposes them to an idea, then they can start to put
together different things in a very creative way to make some of that
stuff happen.’’
What is most striking is that McClellan is suggesting that science
fiction’s power to directly shape research, technology development, and
the political agenda to pursue them are more tangible, more important,
and ultimately, more powerful than are its postulated predictive
qualities. Coming from a senior design engineer who has been involved
in some of the nation’s most important and classified weapons
development and research projects, this assertion is extraordinarily
provocative and difficult to dismiss. Given William Broad’s revealing
interviews with Strategic Defense Initiative’s young Star Warriors at
Livermore Labs, McClellan’s comments support the proposition that
this discursive dynamic is the rule, rather than the exception, within the

7. 204 CHARLES E. GANNON
military R&D community. Indeed, most of the other interviewees I
polled, whether formally or informally, were at least as emphatic in
asserting a ‘‘cause-and-effect’’ relationship between the ideas and
images presented in hard science fiction and the research and
development initiatives undertaken by the military-industrial complex.
Although McClellan made little mention of Heinlein, he was
familiar with Starship Troopers. This points to another process whereby
such texts and authors exert influence over the military/industrial
complex: their reinspection, and even revision, of the military ethos
itself. Certain science fictional assessments of the changing social
perspective on war and warriors are not only well-known to military
personnel, but have become significant referents for professional
discussions. This suggests that those authors who evince expertise in
both scientific and military domains may have the potential to exert a
particularly powerful influence over certain elite readers. There is
evidence that this is the case with Heinlein: certainly the VIP status of
his later years suggests it. Furthermore, the influence and authority of
his future war fictions seem to be growing. In Air Force 2025, the
Mobile Infantry of Starship Troopers is invoked as an ideal model for
the next century’s soldiers: in his paper ‘‘Brilliant Warriors,’’ Lt.
General Jay W. Kelley, USAF, asserts:
(W)e have taken people already committed to the warrior profession and must
train and educate them in such a way that by 2025, as compared to today, they
will be brilliant—smart, adept, agile, savvy—professional warriors. Take
away the gizmos of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Trooper (sic) and use that
image to envision the best in tomorrow’s warriors. They should have all the
attitudes and behaviors that allow them to survive, succeed, and lead others in
whatever future we find ourselves.
That same year, an even more telling example of the influence of Starship
Troopers appeared in what is arguably the most august, conservative, and
buttoned-down of all military journals. The November 1996 issue of the
Proceedings of the US Naval Institute included an article entitled ‘‘We Can
Make Real Starship Troopers.’’ The headlining picture showed a recent
copy of Heinlein’s classic protruding from the back pocket of a Marine’s
camouflage fatigues. The author, Captain Robert Smullen, USMC,
compares Marine training and readiness to that of the Mobile Infantry—
and finds his own service lacking. His solution: use Heinlein’s elite
troopers as literal models for an overhaul of the Corps’ training programs.
One reader of Smullen’s article was Alan Brown, a Commander in the
Coast Guard Reserve and a member of the Science Fiction Writers of
America, who observed that, ‘‘I have always known that there was an

8. IMAG(IN)ING TOMORROW’S WARS AND WEAPONS 205
affinity between military personnel and the science fiction audience (the
folks at the local Waldenbooks tell me this has been measured through
market research, science fiction sells better near military bases). But I
never imagined that such a respectful reference to science fiction would be
found in an otherwise conservative professional journal.’’
Smullen’s article is most significant not for its content, nor for the
‘‘respect’’ it accords Heinlein and Starship Troopers, nor even for the
purposeful attempt to promote Heinlein’s ‘‘cap troopers’’ as the
technological and psychological model of the new Marine. Its most
significant feature is that the article’s author and editors expected that a
sizable majority of the Proceedings subscribers have read and remember
Heinlein’s 1959 future war novel. Their expectations were evidently
correct: no confused letters or protests were stimulated by Smullen’s
article. Nor were any such objections raised when George and Meredith
Friedman’s widely bruited book, The Future of War: Power,
Technology and American World Dominance in the 21st Century,
employed numerous references to Heinlein’s Starship Troopers as
harbingers of the kind of ‘‘poor, bloody infantry’’ that would be
required for America’s twenty-first-century missions.
T here are many other, less high profile, examples of SF’s
technological and doctrinal influence on both the dissemination
and inspiration of military ‘‘actualities.’’ S. M. Stirling’s short story,
‘‘Necessity,’’ for instance, introduces a small arm—‘‘the DZ-7 Light
Assault Rifle’’—whose specifications closely follow those of the Joint
Service Small Arms Program’s once-projected replacement for the
aging M-16A2 assault rifle, the Objective Infantry Combat Weapon
(OICW). The DZ-7 and the OICW have identical range and extremely
similar targeting, sensor, and data processing capabilities. Similarly, the
armor usually worn in conjunction with the DZ-7 is a computer-
permeated chameleon suit that offers an extensive suite of sensor,
computing, communications, and concealment options, and also
provides for direct user–machine electronic interface. Once again, most
of the components of Stirling’s futuristic-sounding battle-garb are not
made from the gossamer of dreams: analogs of almost all its ‘‘fictional’’
components are currently undergoing trials as part of the U.S. Army’s
much-publicized Land Warrior combat dress.
Remote operations, robotics, and limited artificial intelligence
(AI) devices have also moved rapidly from drawing board, to proving
ground, to battlefield. The most ominous of these weapons may be the
Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA) ‘‘Future
Combat Systems’’ (FCS)—a more ambitious, ground-warfare analog
of Boeing’s Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) project—where

9. 206 CHARLES E. GANNON
robotics is not merely a part of the multi-vehicle system, but the
lynchpin of its entire operational concept: ‘‘The first concept will be for
a network-centric, distributed force that will include a manned
command and control element/personnel carrier, a robotic direct-fire
system, a robotic non-line of sight system, an all-weather robotic sensor
system, coupled with other layered sensors.’’ This vision of a largely
robotic army—imagined by Nicolai Tesla and others—was repeatedly
explored by science fiction writers, probably most notably by Keith
Laumer in his influential ‘‘Bolo’’ series.
This article’s final example pushes beyond the realm of the
primarily tactical battlefield and out into the strategic concept of orbital
defenses. In 1983, with the advent of SDI, anticipations of space-based
anti-missile missiles and lasers suddenly leaped the nebulous divide
between science fiction and national policy. Arguably, it was science
fiction writers who had brought these technologies and options to the
military’s attention and into the national political spotlight. Among the
strong supporters of SDI was Ben Bova, whose advocacy for it
appeared in his non-fictional tracts The High Road (1981) and Assured
Survival (1984), as well as his novel Privateers (1985). Robert Heinlein
wrote a number of supportive articles, and penned the Foreword for
Lieutenant General Daniel O. Graham’s The High Frontier, an
influential, Reagan-endorsed tract on the pro-SDI side of the debate.
It was Jerry Pournelle, however, who was the most outspoken
supporter of SDI. Along with fellow hard science fiction author Dean
Ing, he published what may be the best known non-official tract of the
entire SDI debate: Mutual Assured Survival (1984). But long before this,
his fiction had been nurturing the mindscape of young inventors who
were to become the technological wizards of the ‘‘Star Wars’’ initiative.
Pournelle’s greatest claim to popular fame is a long string of far
future war stories with a ‘‘hard science’’ basis that were not only
popular with the general science fiction readership, but also with many
of the individuals who provided the brain-power for the SDI program.
When science journalist William J. Broad interviewed dozens of young
weapons researchers at Livermore Laboratories for his book Star
Warriors, he discovered that the innovator of the X-ray laser, Peter
Hagelstein, credited Pournelle as one of his primary influences in
conceiving the weapon, which appears in action in the Pournelle/Niven
collaboration, The Mote in God’s Eye. Indeed, Hagelstein had invoked
this, and other future war fictions, in his daring dissertation on the
topic of X-ray lasers.
One of the other key young Star Warriors at Livermore, Rod
Hyde, drawn into the field by his aspirations to design a workable
propulsion system for near–light speed starships, has asserted that his

10. IMAG(IN)ING TOMORROW’S WARS AND WEAPONS 207
interests and abilities were ‘‘nurtured by a stream of science fiction,
most especially by authors Gordon Dickson, Keith Laumer, and
Robert Heinlein.’’ Indeed, the entire mood at Livermore is set by
Broad’s description of an environment pervaded by the genre; pictures
of starships, familiarity with SF tropes and themes, and a ubiquitous
fascination with far future weapons and spacecraft were an integral part
of the Star Warriors’ subcultural and discursive roots and day-to-day
working environment.
I f Pournelle’s fiction provided indirect inspiration for the nation’s
engineering braintrust at Livermore Labs, his influence on both the
technomilitary and political domains of the SDI initiative was even
more direct and powerful. In a testimonial, dated October 27, 1983, for
Pournelle’s tract Mutual Assured Survival, President Ronald Reagan
expressed appreciation for the ‘‘generous comments’’ made about his
March 23 speech and noted that ‘‘You and your associates deserve high
praise for addressing with verve and vision the challenges to peace and
to our national security.’’ Reagan’s letter was printed in full on the back
cover of Mutual Assured Survival: a sure way to boost the sales of the
book, and in so doing, advance the agenda shared by author and
president alike.
The genesis of Mutual Assured Survival is, in itself, a revealing
example of the overlapping discursive domains of future writers,
military experts, and senior aerospace figures. Although the book was
written by Pournelle and Ing, the recommendations presented in it were
the result of coordinated committee work by a group of individuals who
examined various nuclear defense alternatives and then presented their
assessments of the separate options, along with recommendations for
implementation. This group, the Citizen’s Advisory Panel on National
Space Policy, included three astronauts (including Buzz Aldrin), eight
science fiction writers and editors (including Heinlein, Pournelle,
Gregory Benford, Larry Niven, and Greg Bear), four major physicists,
two retired generals—and Star Warriors Rod Hyde and Lowell Wood,
both of whom had been interviewed in depth by William Broad. The
book circulated at various official levels, and Reagan’s response is
consistent with other indicators that it enjoyed a high regard within the
broader ranks of the administration.
Although the SDI program was, ultimately, discontinued (mostly),
that does not diminish the discursive significance of Mutual Assured
Survival. Indeed, ‘‘failed predictions’’ do not logically indicate that
science fiction and its authors have no influence over future weapons
and warfare. Instead, and in conclusion, the litmus test of any text’s
influence is not determined by whether its ideas prevail, but rather, is

11. 208 CHARLES E. GANNON
indicated by the credence and respect those ideas are accorded by the
political and military elite. Judging from both the frequency and wide
array of official requests for science fiction authors to participate in the
processes of both technological inspiration and forecasting, as well as
strategic and tactical speculation, it seems that those measures of
conferred credence and respect are very high indeed.
RECOMMENDED READINGS
Air University 2025 Support Staff. 1996. ‘‘Airforce 2025.’’ White paper. Air Force University
Press. Available either through Defense Technical Information Center (ATTN: DTIC-BRR);
8725 John J. Kingman Road, Suite 0944; Ft. Belvoir, VA 22060-6218 or online at <http://
www.au.af.mil/au/2025/>
Broad, William J. 1985. Star Warriors. New York: Simon and Schuster.
DARPA, United States Government. 2000. ‘‘Exoskeletons for Human Performance
Augmentation.’’ Available at <http://www.darpa.mil/dso/solicitations/00/Baa00-34/cbd.htm>,
last accessed July 12, 2000.
Friedman, George and Meredith Friedman. 1998. The Future of War: Power, Technology and
American World Dominance in the 21st Century. New York: St. Martin’s.
Gannon, Charles E. 2005. Rumors of War and Infernal Machines: Technomilitary Agenda-Setting in
American and English Speculative Fiction. Boulder, CO and Lanham, MA: Rowman and
Littlefield, Inc.
Garamone, Jim. 1998. ‘‘Army Tests Land Warrior for 21st Century Soldiers.’’ Army Link, Army
News Service(September 14). Available at <http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Sep1998/
a19980914lanwar.html>.
Haldeman, Joe (ed.). 1988. Space-Fighters. New York: Ace Books.
Heinlein, Robert A. 1959. Starship Troopers. New York: Berkley.
Ing, Dean. 1984. Firefight 2000. New York: Baen Books.
McClellan, Jerry. 1996. Personal interview. March 7.
Pournelle, Jerry and Dean Ing. 1984. Mutual Assured Survival. New York: Baen.
Staff Author, Unattributed. 1999. ‘‘Boeing Unmanned Combat Aircraft to be Developed.’’ Boeing
News 58(15): 1,12.
Stirling, S. M. 1988. ‘‘Necessity,’’ in John Carr and Jerry Pournelle (eds.), War World: The Burning
Eye. New York: Baen Books.
U.S. Government. Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs). 2000. ‘‘Darpa and
Army Select Contractors For Future Combat Systems Programs.’’ News Release No. 236-00
(May 9). Available at <http://www.darpa.mil/fcs/news/news_release.htm>.
Dr. Charles E. Gannon regularly publishes both fiction and non-fiction; his most recent scholarly
book (‘‘Rumors of War and Infernal Machines: Technomilitary Agenda Setting in American and
British Speculative Fiction’’) is in second edition and won the 2006 American Library Association
Award for Outstanding Book. He has been a Fulbright Fellow at Liverpool, Dundee, and Palacky
(Czech Rep) and his work on fiction, technology, and political influence is widely cited. Prior to his
academic career, he worked eight years as a scriptwriter and producer in New York City, where his
credits included programs for the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and The
President’s Council on Physical Fitness. E-mail: cegannon1@comcast.net