NATO 2099 Graphic Novel Depicts the Future of the Alliance
NATO 2099 Graphic Novel Depicts the Future of the Alliance
The NATO Defense College put out a call for authors from all NATO member countries to submit stories imagining the future of NATO in 2099.
In 2024, NATO is celebrating its 75th anniversary. At this key juncture, the NATO Defense College (NDC) is looking ahead to 75 years in the future, imagining what NATO – and the world – will look like in 2099.
The NATO 2099 graphic novel takes place in a world that experienced a devastating series of global maritime attacks throughout the 2050s. During these ‘Sea Wars’, small groups of malicious actors used unmanned technologies to blow up the warships of national navies, hold cruise ships hostage for ransom, and commit terrorist acts against civilians.
After working together to defeat the networks of terrorist groups and private militias, the governments of the world signed a treaty that has kept the peace for almost 40 years. But now, in 2099, a new threat emerges in space.
In October 2023, the NATO Defense College put out a call for authors from all NATO member countries to submit stories imagining the future of NATO in 2099 – 75 years from the 75th anniversary in 2024.
By early 2024, the NDC had received stories from science fiction authors representing all NATO Allies and some partner countries. After reading through all the stories, four common themes emerged: NATO in space, the effects of climate change on security and defence, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the military domain, and a female NATO Secretary General.
Over the following months, three lead authors from the NDC’s editorial team wove together these four main threads, merging the stories of 34 authors to create a single fictional narrative.
The authors then worked with artist Jaouen Salaün, assisted by Nicolas Minvielle and Roxane Montfort, to create the finished product, which includes hundreds of panels illustrating the story.
They also decided to release a selection of the standalone stories as a teaser of the full novel. On 4 April 2024, to celebrate NATO’s 75th anniversary, the NDC published NATO 2099 – The science fiction anthology. Its 15 stories depict a wide range of imaginative elements (which represent the views of the authors, and not NATO or the NDC).
According to NATO, many of the stories include negative developments in their future histories, such as the attempted invasion of Taiwan, or the United States withdrawing from NATO (and then returning).
But overall, the 2099 depicted in the anthology and the graphic novel is one where NATO has weathered these storms and grown stronger. In 2099, as in 2024, the keys to NATO’s success are its resilience, its unity in the face of any crisis, and its ability to adapt to meet the world’s ever-evolving challenges – whether those futures are predicted or remain unforeseen.
Courtesy: NATO
