Brent Scowcroft Center Nonresident Fellow August Cole writes for War on the Rocks on creative thinking and modern warfare:
My stiff fingers ritually explore the keyboard in the early morning dark. The coffee maker in the kitchen gurgles like it’s drowning, but I am the one needing that cup of salvation next to me on the dining room table as soon as possible.
Nobody else is awake in the house. Why would they be?
I’d say this is my time, but it’s really not. The hours between five and seven in the morning belong to others: The fictional Marines, soldiers, sailors and security contractors of the future whom I struggle to give the lives they deserve; the people counting on my professional writing in the “real world” of defense and security analysis; my co-writer on the biggest professional gambit I’ve ever undertaken: a novel about the next world war.