Tessera
Folgen

Tom F.A. Watts

@tfawatts.bsky.social

IR scholar working at the intersection of war, technology, and culture | Interested in US foreign policy, military applications of AI, and great power competition

8 Posts116 Follower158 Folgt
Tom F.A. Watts@tfawatts.bsky.social · 2mo ago

In this short piece, I reflect on my contributions to the AUTONORMS project, and how I learned to stop worrying and take the Terminator franchise seriously. Read below 👇

Machine Guardians, Human Monsters, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Take the Terminator Franchise Seriously - AutoNorms

The core aim of the AutoNorms project has been to develop a new theoretical approach for studying the relationship between practices of designing and using autonomous weapon systems (AWS), internation...

autonorms.eu

BISA - British International Studies Association@mybisa.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Come and read our event summary for our First BISA Policy Lab on governance and artificial intelligence (AI) 🌟 Facilitating conversations on the issue of AI governance between policymakers and academics! 🎉 Come and read MA student Sophie Stringfellow's event summary 👉 https://ow.ly/Gszw50Z1vVW

Event summary: First BISA Policy Lab on governance and artificial intelligence (AI)

Sophie Stringfellow gives a summary of the discussions that took place at the Policy Lab in April 2026.

ow.ly

Tom F.A. Watts@tfawatts.bsky.social · 3mo ago

How have American defense planners come to understand military AI as being a key technological domain of great power competition? In this article, I examine how an “offset imaginary” has shaped the Pentagon's efforts to frame AI as being essential to sustaining US military power.

The offset imaginary: Great power competition, security imaginaries, and the making of artificial intelligence in American defense planning

This article draws from the International Relations literature on security imaginaries to examine how the development of AI has been socially constructed by defense planners in the United States as...

tandfonline.com

Tom F.A. Watts@tfawatts.bsky.social · 3mo ago

References to the “imaginary” are everywhere in debates on technology, war, and security. In this article, Rubrick Biegon, Daniel Møller Ølgaard, and I take stock of this “turn” and map how imaginaries are used across IR and Security Studies. Read the full text below⬇️⬇️⬇️

Interrogating the imaginary turn: Technology, war, and world politics in an era of great power competition

References to the “imaginary” have become prevalent in the study of technology and war in contemporary world politics. As an introduction to this special issue, this article interrogates the “turn”...

tandfonline.com

Tom F.A. Watts@tfawatts.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The Terminator franchise is everywhere in debates on military AI. In a new short piece in Critical Studies on Security, I argue that responsibility for Judgment Day lies not only with Skynet, but with the human policymakers who designed, activated, and abandoned the system.

Monsters of our own making? Skynet, sociotechnical imaginaries, and nuclear risk in today’s era of great power competition

Drawing on Bruno Latour’s reading of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, this intervention challenges the tendency to treat Skynet as the sole ‘monster’ in The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I...

tandfonline.com

Tom F.A. Watts@tfawatts.bsky.social · 3mo ago

How does science fiction shape visions of future war? Duncan Depledge and I argue that science fiction is a key site where sociotechnical imaginaries of war are formed, contested, and (de)stabilised. Read our recent intervention on this subject below ⬇️

Science fiction, sociotechnical imaginaries and future war: new avenues for Critical Security Studies research?

In what ways can science fiction (de)stabilise dominant sociotechnical imaginaries of future war? While existing Critical Security Studies scholarship has examined the relationship between science ...

tandfonline.com

Daniel R. McCarthy@drmccarthy.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Short intervention on SF, utopian method and IR below 👇 'Utopia, dystopia, and method: SF imaginaries of war and political order' Thanks to @tfawatts.bsky.social and Duncan Depledge for the kind invitation to contribute www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Utopia, dystopia and method: Science Fiction imaginaries of war and political order

Utopian and dystopian Science Fiction imaginaries of war are political interventions. A narrative methodology that relates individual texts to larger social imaginaries redeems the complex layers o...

tandfonline.com