The novel The Hunt for Red October debuted in the United States on 1 October 1984. Published by a small publisher, the US Naval Institute Press, the book went on to become hugely successful in the United States and beyond. Ronald Reagan publicly praised the book and even invited its author, former insurance salesman Tom Clancy, to visit the White House. ‘They’re not just novels’, explained George H.W. Bush’s vice president, Dan Quayle. ‘They’re read as the real thing.’

Clancy’s novels made him the most successful fiction writer of the 1980s, and his first three – The Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising, and The Cardinal of the Kremlin – were hugely popular representations of the drama of the Cold War in the Reagan era. The Hunt for Red October follows a rogue Soviet submarine captain who attempts to defect to the United States with a state-of-the-art nuclear submarine, igniting a tense standoff between American and Soviet forces, and the CIA analyst tasked with facilitating his defection.

The novel raised the standard for military thrillers in a decade of new-age military technology such as the futuristic ‘Star Wars’ missile defence system, which, to the Soviets, appeared as if it could upend the delicate strategic balance of the Cold War. As a contemporary New York Times review of the book noted: ‘It’s not heroes and villains who keep the plot afloat, or in this case submerged. Rather, it’s the sophisticated technology available to modern navies, and Mr Clancy describes its uses with a thoroughness bordering on folly.’

Because of its thorough treatment of cutting-edge military technology, The Hunt for Red October is considered a pioneering work in a new generation of military thrillers that feature higher levels of technical accuracy. Clancy’s extensive research ensured that his portrayal of military technologies – such as submarines, naval warfare, and radar systems – was highly realistic. Following the publication of Clancy’s debut novel, military thrillers began to focus more on technical and tactical precision. Authors such as Harold Coyle, Larry Bond, Dale Brown and Stephen Coonts followed in Clancy’s footsteps, each incorporating complex military systems and tactics into their fictional works. Clancy and this next generation of military fiction authors popularised the ‘techno-thriller’, a subgenre that remains highly popular in military literature and for a wider audience today.

However, The Hunt for Red October was simply the next step in a genre of writing that originated in the 19th century. Military fiction emerged as societies and their military institutions sought to understand and adapt to the wide-ranging and rapid technological changes that occurred during the Second Industrial Revolution in the latter half of that century. With that great change came new opportunities and fears.

In the late 1860s an officer in the British Army’s Royal Engineers named George Chesney became concerned with the poor state of the British Army. After failing to achieve any action through writing letters of concern, he decided to author a fictional story highlighting the shortfalls in Britain’s defence. Entitled The Battle of Dorking, his story described an invasion of Britain by a ‘German-speaking’ nation which he called The Enemy.

The story, published in 1871 in the wake of the Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian War, was a sensation. As Lawrence Freedman notes in his book, The Future of War: A History, Chesney’s work quickly sold over 80,000 copies and sparked a national debate about Britain’s defences. The Battle of Dorking was the start of the genre of fiction about the potential for, and the nature of, future conflicts.

The Battle of Dorking would be the book that originated the category of literature about a potential invasion of Britain at the turn of the 20th century. In the lead-up to the First World War, several other books joined this genre. One of the best-known is William Le Queux’s The Invasion of 1910, published in 1906. The key theme in Le Queux’s book was the British military’s lack of preparedness for a European war. The book described a German invasion force landing on the east coast of England and fighting its way into London. Eventually, the British turn the tide on their invader through a popular uprising, liberating their nation. Over one million copies of the book edition were sold, and it was translated into 27 languages.

On the other side of the English Channel, the antagonist of many British military fiction novels was also producing literature for a future war that speculated about what conflict would look like against the British. Perhaps the best-known writer was the Prussian General and military historian Friedrich Adam Julius von Bernhardi. After the Franco-Prussian War and the end of his career as an army corps commander in Westphalia, from 1909 Bernhardi dedicated himself to writing on military subjects. Unlike many of the pre-war authors, he eventually got to put into practice many of his ideas, serving with distinction in the German Army on both the Eastern and Western fronts throughout the First World War.

In 1911, Bernhardi published his best-known work, Germany and the Next War. Gaining popularity among German nationalists, it became even more widely read in Britain when a translated edition was released in 1912. Many in Britain believed it provided evidence of the ill intent that Germany harboured towards them. The book is bellicose in character, and at one point, Bernhardi describes war as a ‘biological necessity of the first importance’. But Germany in the Next War was also a detailed examination of Germany’s place in the world and its aspirations (or at least those of the author) to become a world power. The book proposed the character of the next war while conducting in-depth examinations of German land and naval power. Bernhardi also notably recommended the development of what he called an ‘air fleet’.

Across the Atlantic, American author Frank Stockton described a different vision of future war. Published in 1889, Stockton’s The Great War Syndicate described a war between the United States and England. The twist of this story is that 23 ‘great capitalists’ form a syndicate in America and propose to the US Congress that they take charge of the war. The syndicate would ‘assume the entire control and expense of the war, and to effect a satisfactory peace within one year’. Stockton’s book was prescient, and it remained relatable to generations of readers familiar with the power of the military-industrial complex.

Another early work of speculative military fiction that has made a lasting impact is H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel, The War of the Worlds. Unlike other stories centred on the threat of invasion from across the Channel or the Atlantic, this tale features an invader that does not even originate from Earth. Wells explored the theme of future war through the lens of science fiction – an invasion from Mars. Originally serialised in 1897 by Pearson’s Magazine in England and by Cosmopolitan in the United States, it was published as a novel in 1898.

Wells’ story is significant for several reasons. First, it was one of the earliest novels to explore conflict between humans and aliens, and its themes have permeated science fiction for over 120 years. It also serves as an exploration of conflict with ‘the other’. Most European and American future-war literature of the time dealt with familiar adversaries, as well similar methods of warfare, weapons, and ways of thinking. The War of the Worlds diverged from this approach by having its protagonists face an entirely new enemy, whose weapons, tactics, strengths, and weaknesses were unknown to Earth’s defenders.

The novel contained important themes that would manifest in the wars of the first half of the 20th century. Wells described a vision of total war – destruction without moral limitations – that emerged during the First World War. The widespread death and devastation depicted in Wells’ novel became a reality for cities including London, Hamburg, Berlin, Tokyo, and many others during the second great war from 1939 to 1945. Wells also focused on the Martians’ destruction of key infrastructure, the lifelines of the Second Industrial Revolution. The emphasis on demolishing British railways, weapon stores, and telegraph lines during the alien invasion presaged the Allies’ focus on destroying German infrastructure during the Second World War.

Over 400 military fiction novels were published between The Battle of Dorking and the start of the Great War in 1914. These pre-war novels laid the foundation for what would become a flood of military fiction after the Second World War. Military fiction truly came of age during the Cold War, in the shadow of nuclear tensions, great power conflicts, and the threat of total destruction, when technologies such as atomic weapons, radar and computing magnified the capabilities and dangers of modern war.

Yet fiction was also a valuable medium for exploring the enduring friction, chaos, and uncertainty inherent in warfare through the ages. The concept of ‘friction’ in war – the myriad factors that complicate military operations – was first articulated by Carl von Clausewitz in his 19th-century work, On War. This uncertainty in military affairs, whether stemming from the unpredictable actions of friendly and enemy forces during conflict, or the ambiguity surrounding a potential adversary’s readiness during peacetime, has been a consistent theme in military fiction across all eras.

In Joe Haldeman’s 1974 science fiction novel The Forever War – an allegory of the Vietnam War – the concept of friction is explored through the prolonged and enigmatic conflict between humans and the alien Taurans. The narrative delves into how miscommunication, cultural misunderstandings, and the vast distances involved in interstellar warfare amplify the uncertainties inherent in military engagements. When the two sides eventually find a way to communicate, their first exchange is the question: ‘Why did you start this war?’ This poignant moment exemplified the enduring, tragic miscalculations and misunderstandings that Clausewitz identified as central to the friction of conflict.

Military fiction novels, like The Hunt for Red October, prominently feature the effects of new technologies on the ancient phenomenon of war. From the strategic implications of the railway and telegraph in stories of the American Civil War, to the early 20th-century speculations of authors such as Le Queux and Bernhardi, and the depictions of machine guns, aircraft, and tanks in the literature of the First World War, authors have consistently explored how technological advancements alter war strategies and outcomes. Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October centres on an advanced nuclear submarine equipped with a revolutionary stealth propulsion system that makes it virtually undetectable. This technology has the potential to shift the balance of power of the Cold War by enabling surprise attacks without warning. As with the perceived threat of Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars system of satellites to destroy incoming missiles, the real danger of Clancy’s submarine was that it invalidated decades of strategic thought around nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction, giving whichever side which held its technology a profound advantage. Through his stories, Clancy showed how the technological innovations of the 1980s reshaped military tactics, international relations, and the decisions of those involved in the high-stakes games of the Cold War.

In the 40 years since The Hunt for Red October was published, military fiction has maintained its popularity, foreshadowing the technological innovation of conflict after the Cold War. Dale Brown, for example, has been a prolific author in the field, focusing on stories about technology innovation in air forces, and how the character of air warfare might evolve because of these disruptive technologies. Over the decade after The Hunt for Red October was published, Brown’s novels such as Day of the Cheetah (1989), and Night of the Hawk (1992) set new standards for advanced aerial technologies and warfare. Fiction about the future of war has tracked evolving geopolitics, too, as international affairs reverted to technological competition between great powers. John O’Brien has authored novels focused on war in the Western Pacific, such as the Tipping Point series, while writers like  Thomas Wing (author of Against All Enemies), Rick Campbell (the Trident Deception series), James Rosone and Miranda Watson (the Red Storm series), and R.G. Roberts (the Cardinal Virtues series) have produced future-focused, high-technology thrillers in response to the changing strategic security environment, and the re-emergence of Russia and China as significant powers.

Militaries also recognise the virtue of fiction as a speculative tool for contemplating the future of conflict. Retired senior military officers have sought to leverage their long military experience to explore contemporary security threats through the lens of high-technology military conflict. The standard was first set by Sir John Hackett with his 1980 novel, The Third World War: August 1985 about a possible clash between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In response to recent events, former military officers have produced works including 2034: A Novel of the Next World War,  co-authored by retired US Navy Admiral James Stavridis, and General Sir Richard Shirreff’s prescient 2016 novel, War with Russia.

Recently, a new term has been developed to describe these fictional stories about military endeavours. The term, FICINT, is an acronym for fictional intelligence. Most often, it has been applied to stories about future warfare to elicit insights for those involved in the design of military forces for future conflict. As Peter Singer and August Cole, authors of the influential novel of a future war, Ghost Fleet, explain in Thinking The Unthinkable With Useful Fiction:

FICINT remains ideally suited to a world not just of technologies evolving at machine speed and geopolitics undergoing systemic changes, but also in the midst of a historical crisis that tests the limits of our comprehension. It can spread research in a manner that is understandable, and more shareable, as well as foster emotional connections that make readers, in turn, more likely to drive change. FICINT can aid in answering the question of ‘what do we do next’ as timelines move forward at an unpredictable pace which every organisation has to contend with, whether it is planning for war or justifying the next budget.

Last year, I published my own attempt to examine the future contours of war with my novel White Sun War: The Campaign for Taiwan. The novel used my previous book, War Transformed, as the intellectual foundation for how conflict was evolving and applied it to explore how a future Chinese invasion of Taiwan might play out. I used the lessons I had taken from watching the war in Ukraine, but I also sought to emulate and pay tribute to those many authors, from Chesney to Hackett to Clancy, who had contributed to the genre of military fiction in the preceding decades. Like them, I hoped to use fiction to prompt new and different thinking about war, military theory and the necessary innovations of Western militaries in the face of evolving threats and technologies.

The Hunt for Red October, and Clancy’s successive novels, played a pivotal role in shaping public awareness and understanding of modern military operations from the 1980s onwards. While previous writers of military fiction had included elements of military technology and strategy, Clancy’s meticulous research and attention to detail provided an unprecedented, informed view of military capabilities that underscored the capacity of technology to upend global affairs. The success of his debut novel propelled military fiction beyond its niche audience of enthusiasts, introducing complex military themes to a mainstream readership and reinforcing the connection between global politics and technology through the Cold War and into the digital revolutions of the information age. Clancy’s breakthrough inspired a wave of subsequent works that blended high-stakes action with accurate portrayals of military technology, personnel, operations, and informed speculation about the next frontier of conflict. In reshaping the genre, The Hunt for Red October set a new standard for thrilling military stories that continues to influence contemporary authors who aspire to Clancy’s level of authenticity and narrative mastery, and who hope to use fiction to plan for the future of war.