Fic-Int in the House

The first time the US House has hosted military science fiction?

Over the last week, we've seen story after story about a surveillance balloon that US forces shot down off the North Carolina coast, and the subsequent other "objects" that have been downed in the days that followed. The incident has heightened some already tense relations with China, and it brought to mind the longer-term efforts about US/Chinese relations, and what US policymakers, strategists, and military officers have been doing to envision and prepare for a possible clash between the two countries.

One of the folks that I follow for this sort of thing is P.W. Singer, the author of books like Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, and LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media (with Emerson T. Brooking) and the co-author of Ghost Fleet and Burn-In (along with August Cole). Along with Cole, he's been a proponent of using fiction as a tool to help convey information, especially within governmental and military circles, where folks tend to write up long white papers about possible threats and scenarios. (You can read a bit more about that via the link below)

Singer recently provided testimony before the House Armed Services Committee about the future of warfare and what the Pentagon needs to do in order to prepare to confront future adversaries – particularly regarding the ongoing tensions between China and Taiwan. In his prepared opening statement, Singer provided a rationale for using this sort of fiction by going a bit meta: he put together a fictional scenario titled "Opening Statement by Prisoner R-45 to the People's Committee for Revolutionary Renewal," which he mused on Twitter might very well be the first time a fictional story has been submitted to the House as expert testimony. You can watch a recording of Singer's testimony here.