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For Daniel Gerstein, a 2009 PhD  graduate at the at 911����, the future of warfare may sound like science fiction: augmented soldiers with brain-computer interfaces fighting alongside AI-enabled humanoid robots, with humans increasingly removed from decisions once made exclusively by commanders on the battlefield.

But Gerstein insists the imagined technologies in his novel, War Without Humanity: Conflict in the Post-Human Era, are grounded in his assessments of emerging capabilities. The book was released in May.

It is science and it is fiction, he said, but to his mind it is not traditional “science fiction.” 

The technologies in the book, he explained, are based on his assessments of when emerging capabilities could actually mature. “A lot of them are coming to pass,” he added.

The novel is the first work of fiction among Gerstein’s 10 books and brings together experience from his careers in the military and academia. The book imagines a new kind of military unit composed of conventional troops alongside technologically augmented humans and AI-enabled humanoid robots. 

He imagines not only how effective such a fighting force would be but, perhaps more crucially, how they would be organized, trained, commanded, and controlled. If they could.

“Where’s the first human in this new type of formation?” Gerstein asked, raising one of the central questions of the book.

Gerstein approaches the subject with an unusual combination of academic and professional experience. He spent 27 years on active duty in the U.S. Army, in addition to four years at West Point, and later served in the Department of Defense and as a political appointee in the Obama administration. He later became acting undersecretary for science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Gerstein traces an important turning point in that career to 911���� and specifically the Schar School.

His dissertation in the school’s biodefense program examined the potential for a bioterrorist attack. Within a six-month span, he said, he completed the dissertation, landed a book contract to write about bioterrorism, became an adjunct professor at American University, and was selected by the Obama administration to work on countering weapons of mass destruction, with an emphasis on countering biological warfare.

“[The Schar School] was really the catalyst for doing that,” Gerstein said. His subsequent work at DHS included protecting critical infrastructure, cybersecurity, countering weapons of mass destruction, and agricultural biodefense. 

Today, his relationship with the school has come full circle. Gerstein is a Schar School adjunct professor, teaching a course called Technology and National Security, and also serves on the  board at an at-large-member.

He calls himself, jokingly, a Schar School “triple threat”: former student, current professor, and active alumnus.

His continued involvement, he said, is largely about giving back to an institution that helped launch the second phase of his professional life. He particularly enjoys working with students and alumni and participating in panels where he can share what he learned navigating careers in the military, government, academia, and policy.

“I do feel like the Schar School was a very important part of my professional career,” he said.

War Without Humanity brings many of those strands together. Gerstein worries that technological development is moving faster than society’s ability to manage its consequences, something that has raised alarming headlines in recent weeks. Historically, he said, regulation tends to follow harm rather than anticipate it—a pattern that becomes increasingly consequential as artificial intelligence and biotechnology advance.

The questions Gerstein explored as a biodefense doctoral student about understanding emerging threats and preparing for their consequences continue to shape his work, now through fiction.