Laser weapons, advanced drone warfare, and nation states around the globe redefined by climate change: this is the world in 2084, envisioned by authors Jim Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman.

Both are veterans – Ackerman, a former Marine, did five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan; Stavridis is a retired four-star admiral and a former supreme allied commander of NATO. Their novel 2084 is the third in a trilogy. They compare their work to cold war fiction like Dr. Strangelove – stories that imagined disasters specifically so society would work to avoid them. In this episode, they unpack what dangers they see on the distant horizon.