It’s kind of strange to look back on the Soviet era as the good old days, but for thriller writers they were a Golden Age. Novelists like Tom Clancy, Frederick Forsyth, and Robert Ludlum had an endless supply of sophisticated enemies bent on (and perhaps capable of) world domination. Oddly, the rivalry between Russia and the US also brought stability. Everyone chose a side, and the two teams pushed each other around the playing field in more or less predictable ways. The possibilities were endless but bracketed by a set of unwritten geopolitical rules.

The 90s and Beyond

After the fall of the Soviet Union, that stability began to break down and unleashed the long-simmering phenomenon of Islamic extremism. While the threat itself was fundamentally different, the environment was still easily recognizable with America emerging as the remaining superpower and battling against the forces of chaos and destruction. The enemy was less sophisticated and playing a different game than the Soviets, but the delineation between good and evil, friend and foe, was still clear. Certainly, America made mistakes during this era, but we did so to defend the delicate balance that allows the world—and thriller novelists—to thrive.

Most readers don’t think about it, but people in my business exist on a terrifying tightrope. We need to make our books feel like they’re ripped from tomorrow’s headlines (if you’ll excuse the cliché), but you also don’t want to get ahead of history like I have a few times. Remember that a manuscript is pretty much complete around a year before the release date and every author has nightmares about seeing their plot play out in the news before publication. A good example of this is my Mitch Rapp book, Red War, about a Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Baltic states. If I’d written it a few years later, the real-world invasion would have intervened.

Who’s the Enemy Now?

And so that brings us to the present day. As America becomes less predictable and more inward looking, it’s increasingly difficult to foresee what comes next. Our view of the Russians, Europeans, Asians, etc. now seems to fluctuate constantly. Internal divisions are looming larger than external ones, further blurring the lines between protagonist and antagonist. Even the evangelism for free markets and the plodding inner workings of our bureaucracy—once a cornerstone of the modern political and economic landscape—are being reshaped almost daily.

What’s the answer for people in my profession? Some are stepping back in time to explore historical scenarios or revisiting past threats. Others are dialing in their focus, leaving behind big geopolitical chess games for plots that are more intimate and personal.

The World We Live In

I, on the other hand, have decided to dive in headfirst. The threats we face today—runaway technology, rising authoritarianism and tribalism, traditional media outlets interested only in ratings, social media platforms run by algorithms that use our very nature against us—are just too interesting to pass up. Unfortunately, they’re also complex waters to navigate. Why? For a number of reasons, but the most compelling is that after a while you realize that China’s never going to invade America. Russia’s never going to launch their nukes at us. The Islamicists are never going to be capable of much more than random attacks. We’re beyond all that now. I believe that 2025 marks the beginning of a chaotic era of frenzied self-destruction.

I’ll let Abraham Lincoln have the last word on the subject:

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Photo: Mstyslav Chernov/WikiCommons