Peter W. Singer is a best selling author and consultant for groups that range from the US military to Hollywood, whose recent book Ghost Fleet (ghostfleetbook.com) broke new ground in creating the genre of what has been called “useful fiction.” It blended the style of a technothriller with nonfiction style research, leading to a learning experience that is both “a wild book, a real page turner” (the Economist) and “a modern-day successor to tomes such as The Hunt For Red October from the late Tom Clancy” (USA Today), but also packed with lessons of the future of technology, geopolitics, and security. Described by the Wall Street Journal as “one of Washington’s pre-eminent futurists,” Singer has been invited to brief the approach and lessons of the book to groups that range from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to Congress and CEO summits.
Peter Singer
Strategist at New America, a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University, and Founder & Managing Partner at Useful Fiction LLC, a company specializing in strategic narrative
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Peter Singer
Biography
A New York Times Bestselling author, described in the Wall Street Journal as “the premier futurist in the national-security environment” and “all-around smart guy” in the Washington Post, he has been named by the Smithsonian as one of the nation’s 100 leading innovators, by Defense News as one of the 100 most influential people in defense issues, by Foreign Policy to their Top 100 Global Thinkers List, and as an official “Mad Scientist” for the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command. No author, living or dead, has more books on the professional US military reading lists. His non-fiction books include Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Children at War, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century; Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know and most recently LikeWar, which explores how social media has changed war and politics. It was named an Amazon and Foreign Affairs book of the year and reviewed by Booklist as “LikeWar should be required reading for everyone living in a democracy and all who aspire to.” He is also the co-author of a new type of novel, using the format of a technothriller to communicate nonfiction research. Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War was both a top summer read and led to briefings everywhere from the White House to the Pentagon. His latest is Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution. It has been described by the creator of Lost and Watchmen as “A visionary new form of storytelling—a rollercoaster ride of science fiction blended with science fact,” and by the head of Army Cyber Command as “I loved Burn-In so much that I’ve already read it twice.”
Peter Singer
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Current: The Power of Story
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Strategic Narrative
How to Use The Power of a Story Well Told
How do we better share new ideas and influence target audiences? How do we better understand and prepare for the future? How do we comprehend new trends and technologies? One answer may be to enlist the power of the oldest communication technology of all –story. Described in the Wall Street Journal as “the premier futurist in the national-security environment,” P.W. Singer is a best-selling author of both nonfiction and fiction, whose work at the intersection of strategic foresight, discovery, and narrative has been featured in media like The Economist and Wired. He is also the founder of Useful Fiction LLC, a company that aids organizations in “telling their story” more effectively. Having worked for groups that range from the US military and CIA to Hollywood and the most popular video game in history, he will explain the “why” of narrative and “how” best to tell a useful story.
AI and Robots
As Science Fiction Turns Real, What Do We Need to Know?
Robots, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet of Things. The next decade will see a range of exciting new technologies that all seem drawn from Science Fiction become our reality. They will drive a new industrial revolution, but also create political, economic, and security trends that will remake our world, challenging us like never before. P.W. Singer has been described by the Wall Street Journal as “the premier futurist in the national-security environment,” an official “Mad Scientist” for the U.S. Army, and consults for groups that range from the CIA and the Pentagon to Hollywood. A best-selling author of multiple books of fiction and non-fiction, Singer uses an exciting speaking style to explore for an audience the key trends and questions emerging today that will shape the world of tomorrow.
How Ukraine Won The #LikeWar
Communication Lessons for Leaders
For years, Russia was the most feared player on the Internet, shaping everything from elections to the pandemic. But when it came time for its most audacious operation of all, Ukraine turned the tables on the supposed master of information warfare, which not only drove global sympathy, but has had real battlefield and political effect. P. W. Singer is the co-author of “LikeWar,” a book that was named an Amazon book of the year and consultant to groups as diverse as the US military and Hollywood He will explain the ten techniques that Ukraine used to win its online fight, and what are the lessons for other nations, corporations, and leaders as they fight their own battles of information and persuasion.
The CyberThreatscape
What are the Key Trends in Cybersecurity
From ransomware to the collapse of cyber deterrence, a series of new threats are changing the cybersecurity landscape. A best selling author described by the Wall Street Journal as “one of Washington’s pre-eminent futurists,” and a consultant for groups that range from the CIA and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to Hollywood, Singer uses an exciting speaking style to explore for an audience the key trends emerging today that will shape the world of cybersecurity tomorrow.
Peter Singer
Featured Books
Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution
by Peter Singer
“A white-knuckle adventure . . . This near-future was crafted by experts, and it shows.”—Daniel H. Wilson, New York Times best-selling author of Robopocalypse
“Fantastic, compelling, and authoritative.” —General David Petraeus (US Army, Ret.)
An FBI agent hunts a new kind of terrorist through a Washington, DC, of the future in this ground-breaking book—at once a gripping technothriller and a fact-based tour of tomorrow.
America is on the brink of a revolution, one both technological and political. After narrowly stopping a bombing at Washington’s Union Station, FBI Special Agent Lara Keegan receives a new assignment: to field-test an advanced police robot. As a series of shocking catastrophes unfolds, the two find themselves investigating a conspiracy whose mastermind is using cutting-edge tech to rip the nation apart. With every tech, trend, and scene drawn from real-world research, Burn-In blends a techno-thriller’s excitement with nonfiction’s insight to illuminate the darkest corners of the world soon to come.
Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media
by Peter Singer
Two defense experts explore the collision of war, politics, and social media, where the most important battles are now only a click away.
Through the weaponization of social media, the internet is changing war and politics, just as war and politics are changing the internet. Terrorists livestream their attacks, “Twitter wars” produce real-world casualties, and viral misinformation alters not just the result of battles, but the very fate of nations. The result is that war, tech, and politics have blurred into a new kind of battlespace that plays out on our smartphones.
P. W. Singer and Emerson Brooking tackle the mind-bending questions that arise when war goes online and the online world goes to war. They explore how ISIS copies the Instagram tactics of Taylor Swift, a former World of Warcraft addict foils war crimes thousands of miles away, internet trolls shape elections, and China uses a smartphone app to police the thoughts of 1.4 billion citizens. What can be kept secret in a world of networks? Does social media expose the truth or bury it? And what role do ordinary people now play in international conflicts?
Delving into the web’s darkest corners, we meet the unexpected warriors of social media, such as the rapper turned jihadist PR czar and the Russian hipsters who wage unceasing infowars against the West. Finally, looking to the crucial years ahead, LikeWar outlines a radical new paradigm for understanding and defending against the unprecedented threats of our networked world.
Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War
by Peter Singer
"A novel that reads like science fiction but bristles with rich detail about how the next World War could be fought." —Vice
“A modern-day successor to tomes such as The Hunt for Red October from the late Tom Clancy.” –USA Today
What Will World War III Look Like?
Ghost Fleet is a page-turning imagining of a war set in the not-too-distant future. Navy captains battle through a modern-day Pearl Harbor; fighter pilots duel with stealthy drones; teenage hackers fight in digital playgrounds; Silicon Valley billionaires mobilize for cyber-war; and a serial killer carries out her own vendetta. Ultimately, victory will depend on who can best blend the lessons of the past with the weapons of the future. But what makes the story even more notable is that every trend and technology in book—no matter how sci-fi it may seem—is real.
The debut novel by two leading experts on the cutting edge of national security, Ghost Fleet has drawn praise as a new kind of technothriller while also becoming the new “must-read” for military leaders around the world.
“A wild book, a real page-turner.”—The Economist
“Ghost Fleet is a thrilling trip through a terrifyingly plausible tomorrow. This is not just an excellent book, but an excellent book by those who know what they are talking about. Prepare to lose some sleep.”—D. B. Weiss, writer of HBO’s Game of Thrones
“It’s exciting, but it’s terrifying at the same time.”—General Robert Neller, commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps
Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know
by Peter Singer
A generation ago, "cyberspace" was just a term from science fiction, used to describe the nascent network of computers linking a few university labs. Today, our entire modern way of life, from communication to commerce to conflict, fundamentally depends on the Internet. And the cybersecurity issues that result challenge literally everyone: politicians wrestling with everything from cybercrime to online freedom; generals protecting the nation from new forms of attack, while planning new cyberwars; business executives defending firms from once unimaginable threats, and looking to make money off of them; lawyers and ethicists building new frameworks for right and wrong. Most of all, cybersecurity issues affect us as individuals. We face new questions in everything from our rights and responsibilities as citizens of both the online and real world to simply how to protect ourselves and our families from a new type of danger. And yet, there is perhaps no issue that has grown so important, so quickly, and that touches so many, that remains so poorly understood.
In Cybersecurity and CyberWar: What Everyone Needs to Know®, New York Times best-selling author P. W. Singer and noted cyber expert Allan Friedman team up to provide the kind of easy-to-read, yet deeply informative resource book that has been missing on this crucial issue of 21st century life. Written in a lively, accessible style, filled with engaging stories and illustrative anecdotes, the book is structured around the key question areas of cyberspace and its security: how it all works, why it all matters, and what can we do? Along the way, they take readers on a tour of the important (and entertaining) issues and characters of cybersecurity, from the "Anonymous" hacker group and the Stuxnet computer virus to the new cyber units of the Chinese and U.S. militaries. Cybersecurity and CyberWar: What Everyone Needs to Know® is the definitive account on the subject for us all, which comes not a moment too soon.
What Everyone Needs to Know® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.
Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century
by Peter Singer
“[Singer's] enthusiasm becomes infectious . . . Wired for War is a book of its time: this is strategy for the Facebook generation.” —Foreign Affairs
“An engrossing picture of a new class of weapon that may revolutionize future wars. . .” —Kirkus Reviews
P. W. Singer explores the greatest revolution in military affairs since the atom bomb: the dawn of robotic warfare
We are on the cusp of a massive shift in military technology that threatens to make real the stuff of I, Robot and The Terminator. Blending historical evidence with interviews of an amazing cast of characters, Singer shows how technology is changing not just how wars are fought, but also the politics, economics, laws, and the ethics that surround war itself. Travelling from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to modern-day "skunk works" in the midst of suburbia, Wired for War will tantalise a wide readership, from military buffs to policy wonks to gearheads.
Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry
by Peter Singer
Some have claimed that "War is too important to be left to the generals," but P. W. Singer asks "What about the business executives?" Breaking out of the guns-for-hire mold of traditional mercenaries, corporations now sell skills and services that until recently only state militaries possessed. Their products range from trained commando teams to strategic advice from generals. This new "Privatized Military Industry" encompasses hundreds of companies, thousands of employees, and billions of dollars in revenue. Whether as proxies or suppliers, such firms have participated in wars in Africa, Asia, the Balkans, and Latin America. More recently, they have become a key element in U.S. military operations. Private corporations working for profit now sway the course of national and international conflict, but the consequences have been little explored.
In this book, Singer provides the first account of the military services industry and its broader implications. Corporate Warriors includes a description of how the business works, as well as portraits of each of the basic types of companies: military providers that offer troops for tactical operations; military consultants that supply expert advice and training; and military support companies that sell logistics, intelligence, and engineering.
In an updated edition of P. W. Singer's classic account of the military services industry and its broader implications, the author describes the continuing importance of that industry in the Iraq War. This conflict has amply borne out Singer's argument that the privatization of warfare allows startling new capabilities and efficiencies in the ways that war is carried out. At the same time, however, Singer finds that the introduction of the profit motive onto the battlefield raises troubling questions―for democracy, for ethics, for management, for human rights, and for national security.
Children at War
by Peter Singer
From U.S. soldiers having to fight children in Afghanistan and Iraq to juvenile terrorists in Sri Lanka to Palestine, the new, younger face of battle is a terrible reality of 21st century warfare. Indeed, the very first American soldier killed by hostile fire in the “War on Terrorism” was shot by a fourteen-year-old Afghan boy. Children at War is the first comprehensive examination of a disturbing and escalating phenomenon: the use of children as soldiers around the globe. Interweaving explanatory narrative with the voices of child soldiers themselves, P.W. Singer, an internationally recognized expert in modern warfare, introduces the brutal reality of conflict, where children are sent off to fight in war-torn hotspots from Colombia and the Sudan to Kashmir and Sierra Leone. He explores the evolution of this phenomenon, how and why children are recruited, indoctrinated, trained, and converted to soldiers and then lays out the consequences for global security, with a special case study on terrorism. With this established, he lays out the responses that can end this horrible practice. What emerges is not only a compelling and clarifying read on the darker reality of modern warfare, but also a clear and urgent call for action.
Peter Singer
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Peter Singer
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