This Q&A features George Galdorisi, a Coronado-based author and retired naval aviator and national security professional. Galdorisi writes “fictional intelligence” (FICINT), a genre that uses military expertise to hypothesize global military scenarios. His answers have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
His novel, “Fire and Ice,” was published on March 29, 2021 — nearly one year before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. While the book is a work of fiction, its portrayal of a conflict in Eastern Europe parallelled the eventual war. Galdorisi noted that while his writings pull from his decades of naval experience, they are intended to look at potential scenarios rather than serve as a literal prediction.
Q: Okay, tell me about yourself.
George: So, I grew up in New York City and went to a great high school. Dozens of classmates were going to MIT, Caltech, Rensselaer, you know, top engineering schools. The “map” was that you do that, you come back to New York City, work for an engineering firm, and you’re set until you’re 65 and move to Florida. But I said “that doesn’t sound so good.” I went to the Naval Academy because I was looking for adventure. I found it in the Navy. I did that for 30 years as a helicopter aviator. I graduated from the Academy in 1970. I stayed for 30 years because I was enjoying it. I worked in the private sector for a couple of years, then serendipitously wound up at Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, right down the road from Point Loma Nazarene. I worked there for 25 years and just finished up last September. Now I have more time for grandkids and the writing I’m doing here.
Q: And when did you start writing?
George: I had my first article in a professional journal in 1978. That’s because I had a commanding officer who said, “This is your profession. Like a doctor or a lawyer, you should write to talk about your profession.” So, that’s what I did. You know the old saying, “You make plans, but God laughs?” I had no intention of writing books. One thing led to another, I had a high school friend who was a hugely successful screenwriter, Bill Bleich, and he encouraged me to do novels. Then I did nonfiction. I’ve done about 400 articles and 17 books.
And this book (“Fire and Ice”) is the one that so many friends say was prescient, (they said) that “you predicted this Ukraine War.” I write about things that worry me in the military and intelligence communities. They say “write what you know.” This is the third book in a (fiction) series. The first, “The Coronado Conspiracy,” was set on the USS Coronado and was about drug ops. The second, “For Duty and Honor,” was about a carrier strike group in the gulf playing “cat and mouse” games with Iran.
Q: And was it (“Fire and Ice”) always meant to be predictive? Like a warning?
George: Not so much predictive, other than highlighting that these are ongoing problems. It was stuff I lived; I didn’t have to look anything up. I remember the “Russian Bear” and the “duck and cover” drills under school desks. Then the Soviet Union imploded. But Putin is worse. People call Russia an autocratic regime. It’s a totalitarian regime. I’ve been watching Putin for about 20 years. Russia’s economy is smaller than Italy’s, smaller than Texas, and the demographics are awful — infant mortality and people dying young of alcoholism. So what do you do when people are suffering? Putin called the breakup of the Soviet Union the biggest political disaster of all time. He wants the empire back. I didn’t pick Ukraine for the book because everyone has been “invading” Ukraine in fiction for 10 years. I wanted a new story, so I picked Belarus as a proxy.
Q: So what does Putin want?
George: He wants to ship (the oil) to Western Europe. Until recently, Russia was the main supplier of oil and natural gas to western Europe, and those pipelines run through Ukraine and Belarus. As this story (“Fire and Ice”) evolves, Putin invades because the Belarusian people are agitating against their own government. Just like the people of Iran. Just like the people of Russia.
Q: And that actually happened?
George: Yes, the Belarusian and Ukrainian people have protested against things Russia has been doing. There was a huge underwater pipeline from Russia to Germany that was sabotaged by people who didn’t want Europe dependent on Russian oil. Then there was another one (pipeline from Russia to Europe) that was being built with U.S. help, called the Nord Stream 2.
To put this into context, I’ve worked in the Pentagon. For the longest time, the attitude was “we know what we need to do. We know what might happen.” But two fellows I worked with, Peter Singer and August Cole, came up with a discipline called FICINT — Fictional Intelligence. It’s military thrillers based on real, often declassified intelligence. I joined their group, FICINT, to help institutions like the Air Force Academy imagine “what if” scenarios to look 20 years downstream.
Q: So was Russia’s motive the resources, or the need to distract from domestic suffering?
George: Definitely the distraction. You study warfare and you see it throughout history: When things are bad at home, you unite the country against a foe. Russian propaganda can turn anything into “they are trying to kill our country.”
I constrain my writing to what is possible. Ian Fleming said of James Bond: “My stories may not be probable, but they are possible.” I’ve never written a military thriller where it couldn’t happen. In “For Duty and Honor,” I wrote about the pressure on an admiral because I spent five years on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf for five different admirals. They were all leaders, they were all gentlemen, they were all smart, but I saw the pressures they were under. I watched 25-year-old lieutenants changing cruise missile missions in real-time. There is so much pressure on an admiral because he’s so far away from anyone else who can make the call. In the Army, you can always call the general and ask, but in the Navy, you can’t look the guy in the eye and ask for permission. You have to decide. That’s what jazzes me. That’s what makes me get up in the morning and write.
Q: You spent time in Washington, but did you ever spend time in Russia or Ukraine?
George: Not in Russia itself. But in the military, I was on ships off the coast of Russia “listening” to things — I won’t use the word spying. In the final years of my career, I led the U.S. delegation for military-to-military negotiations with the Chinese Navy in Beijing, Qingdao, and Shanghai. I saw another totalitarian government operate. After we did negotiations in Beijing, we’d go out and have some beers and we were followed. Not to make it cloak and dagger, but it’s very analogous to Russia. My friend in the Navy, retired four-star Adm. Jim Stavridis (the former Supreme Allied Commander Europe), and I still talk frequently. I’ve learned a lot about Russia through that association.
Q: So, regarding your “predictions” coming true — Russia is still bombing Ukraine. What is the plan now?
George: We have just passed the fourth anniversary of the invasion. In the recent New York Times paper, there’s a full two-page article on the war in Ukraine. Russia’s motive now is pride. Putin wants to be remembered as equal to Stalin. In his heart of hearts, other than deflecting the Russian people from their miserable lives, he wants the Russian Empire back together, and Ukraine is the “Jewel in the Crown.” This war is going to drag on for years.
Q: What about the U.S. role? How much more aid does Ukraine need, and does the U.S. even want to give it?
George: In my opinion, if the U.S. and the EU had flowed the best weapons into Ukraine before the invasion while Russia was massing on the border, I don’t think Putin would have invaded. Currently, the U.S. has scaled back aid while the EU is stepping up. Without oversimplifying, it’s all about weaponry now. The Ukrainians are fierce fighters, heart surgeons in their 40s are enlisting to defend their country, and the entire country is mobilized.
Q: What is the biggest conversation citizens should be having with their representatives?
George: China is the biggest threat because they have both military and economic power. Reagan wrecked the Soviet economy by outspending them on defense. Russia didn’t have the economy to keep up. That’s not the case with China; they are the second-biggest economy in the world. They can build and build just like we can. It’s a different scenario.
Look at what happened in Iraq, that was Soviet supplied and Soviet trained military, how long did they last, a week?
Meanwhile, Russia is under immense stress. Their tanks and planes are being destroyed. They are keeping up, but they’re spending a much bigger percentage on their gross domestic product. They are also purposely drafting people from the eastern provinces — minorities — so the families in Moscow and St. Petersburg don’t feel the “pain” of the body bags coming home. It’s very totalitarian.
