Cipher Brief Expert Retired Admiral Jim Stavridis has witnessed today’s complicated national security environment firsthand while he served in the Navy and now, as he helps others navigate it from the private sector. He has teamed up with author and former Marine Elliott Ackerman – who served in Iraq and Afghanistan - to foreshadow what national security threats are lurking around the corner and they’re using fiction to do it. In the pair’s first book together, 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, they examine - in page-turning fashion - how the U.S. might stumble into war with China. In their new novel 2054, they revisit some of their favorite characters to examine how technology and civil conflict can be used as a weapon as great nations vie for power.