The new frontiers of fiction: strategic uses of narratives in the army and intelligence services
Charon, Paul
The new frontiers of fiction: strategic uses of narratives in the army and intelligence services - 2025.
28
Over the past few years, armies and intelligence services across numerous countries, in the West and elsewhere, have seen a proliferation of attempts to think about war and national security issues through the medium of fiction. Whether rightly or wrongly, fiction is regarded as a way of renewing analytical methods, as illustrated by the enthusiasm surrounding the Red Team Défense project in France. Although there is an increasing number of experiments within the armed forces, few studies have assessed the real benefits of these ventures in the light of their scientific foundations. This is what we propose to do in this article by evaluating recent uses of fictional narratives by the armed forces and intelligence services. We show that the use of fiction to think about war comes up against resistance, which explains the still limited use made of this approach. However, recent pioneering work at the intersection of cognitive science and narratology has shown that the powers attributed to fiction have a particularly strong scientific basis. Finally, not only are fictional narratives endowed with powers of anticipation, but they can also prove valuable in terms of analysis training.
The new frontiers of fiction: strategic uses of narratives in the army and intelligence services - 2025.
28
Over the past few years, armies and intelligence services across numerous countries, in the West and elsewhere, have seen a proliferation of attempts to think about war and national security issues through the medium of fiction. Whether rightly or wrongly, fiction is regarded as a way of renewing analytical methods, as illustrated by the enthusiasm surrounding the Red Team Défense project in France. Although there is an increasing number of experiments within the armed forces, few studies have assessed the real benefits of these ventures in the light of their scientific foundations. This is what we propose to do in this article by evaluating recent uses of fictional narratives by the armed forces and intelligence services. We show that the use of fiction to think about war comes up against resistance, which explains the still limited use made of this approach. However, recent pioneering work at the intersection of cognitive science and narratology has shown that the powers attributed to fiction have a particularly strong scientific basis. Finally, not only are fictional narratives endowed with powers of anticipation, but they can also prove valuable in terms of analysis training.
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