Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The DARPA Model For Transformative Technologies Perspectives On The U S Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency William Boone Bonvillian
The DARPA Model For Transformative Technologies Perspectives On The U S Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency William Boone Bonvillian
The DARPA Model For Transformative Technologies Perspectives On The U S Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency William Boone Bonvillian
https://textbookfull.com/product/u-s-army-ranger-handbook-u-s-
department-of-defense/
https://textbookfull.com/product/advances-in-rasch-analyses-in-
the-human-sciences-william-j-boone/
https://textbookfull.com/product/graphene-for-defense-and-
security-first-edition-andre-u-sokolnikov/
https://textbookfull.com/product/differential-undercounts-in-the-
u-s-census-who-is-missed-william-p-ohare/
The good research guide for small scale research
projects 5th Edition Denscombe
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-good-research-guide-for-
small-scale-research-projects-5th-edition-denscombe/
https://textbookfull.com/product/advanced-gatsby-projects-create-
two-advanced-sites-using-technologies-that-compliment-gatsby-1st-
edition-nabendu-biswas/
https://textbookfull.com/product/advanced-gatsby-projects-create-
two-advanced-sites-using-technologies-that-compliment-gatsby-1st-
edition-nabendu-biswas-2/
https://textbookfull.com/product/advanced-software-technologies-
for-post-peta-scale-computing-the-japanese-post-peta-crest-
research-project-mitsuhisa-sato/
The DARPA Model
for Transformative
Technologies
Perspectives on the U.S. Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency
Go to:
https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/1079
© 2019 William B. Bonvillian, Richard Van Atta, and Patrick Windham. Copyright of
individual chapters is maintained by the chapters’ authors.
William B. Bonvillian, Richard Van Atta, and Patrick Windham (eds.), The DARPA Model
for Transformative Technologies Perspectives on the U.S.: Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2019, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0184
In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit, https://
doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0184#copyright
All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have
been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web
Updated digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at
https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0184#resources
Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or
error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher.
Notes on Contributors xi
Acknowledgements xix
Richard Van Atta’s career has focused on the national security policy,
strategy, and technological capabilities of the United States for the
Department of Defense, chiefly for the Office of the Secretary of Defense
and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Office of
Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) of the White House, and the
Intelligence Community. From 1983 to his retirement in 2018, he was
a senior research staff member of the Strategy, Forces and Resources
Division (SF&RD), the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI)
and the Science and Technology Division at the Institute for Defense
Analyses (IDA), with a focus on innovation for national security. His
work at IDA included assessments of the programs and development
strategies of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
From 1993 to 1998, he served as Assistant Deputy Under Secretary
of Defense for Dual Use and Commercial Programs (on temporary
assignment from IDA). He also was an adjunct faculty member in
Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program and the Science,
Technology and International Affairs (STIA) program teaching courses
on Emerging Technology and Security. Dr. Van Atta has a PhD in
Political Science from Indiana University and a BA degree in Political
Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Notes on Contributors xvii
The editors are grateful to the authors who have contributed to this
volume, and to the publications that originally published their articles
and which have agreed to have them reprinted in this volume; each is
acknowledged at the outset of each chapter.
Second, the editors wish to thank Peter L. Singer who provided great
assistance in compiling this volume.
Third, the editors acknowledge and thank colleagues in Japan. This
book is in part based on a briefing book prepared for a workshop at
the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo
on 25 February 2014. This workshop focused on lessons to be learned
from the DARPA model as Japanese officials considered the structure
of a DARPA variant. The authors particularly wish to thank Professor
Atsushi Sunami, who organized that event. Several of the American
authors of this book, including all three editors, participated in the
workshop.
The editors also wish to thank the many colleagues and current and
former DARPA officials who have provided valuable insights into how
DARPA works. They also thank ARPA-E and IARPA former officials for
their insights.
The editors thank their families for their support and patience
as their various studies of DARPA were ongoing. Finally, Patrick
Windham wants to particularly thank his spouse, Dr. Arati Prabhakar.
In the interest of full disclosure, the editors want to note that Dr.
Prabhakar served as the Director of DARPA from July 2012 to January
2017. However, Dr. Prabhakar was not involved in the creation of this
book and the viewpoints expressed here should not be construed as
representing her views or those of DARPA.
1. Introduction:
DARPA—The Innovation Icon
Thus, even by the early 1960s one could say there were three, perhaps
four key DARPA thrusts—with the addition of its exploration of new,
emerging technologies, such as materials, and the nascent information
technologies. As the overview below shows, DARPA’s history has
been perturbed by political dynamics as well as the dynamics of the
technologies it has pursued. Perhaps the most important hallmark of
1 Van Atta, R. (2008). “Fifty Years of Innovation and Discovery”, in DARPA, 50 Years
of Bridging the Gap, ed. C. Oldham, A. E. Lopez, R. Carpenter, I. Kalhikina, and M. J.
Tully. Arlington, VA: DARPA. 20–29, at 25, https://issuu.com/faircountmedia/docs/
darpa50 (Chapter 2 in this volume).
1. Introduction 3
rife with amateurism. The ARPA Directors had little access or knowledge
of what AGILE was doing as Godel “was running the AGILE office as his
own covert operations shop”.3 There were important lessons learnt from
AGILE (as a program run amok, with little oversight) on what not to do.
It was hardly scientific and as an operational program it focused on near-
term solutions. It became a key element in defining what DARPA would
not be in the battle over competing visions for the agency’s future.
With the quick transfer of the space program to NASA, ARPA spent
the rest of the decade focused on missile defense, nuclear test detection
and AGILE. However, in the early 1960s another role for ARPA emerged
as it began to pursue a set of smaller, technically-focused programs
under the general notion of “preventing technological surprise”. Areas
initially pursued were materials science, information technology, and
behavioral science. In fact, one can argue that ARPA in essence “invented”
these as areas of technological pursuit. These began in 1961 under Jack
Ruina, the first scientist to direct ARPA, who hired J. C. R. Licklider as
the first director of the Information Processing Techniques Office. That
office played a vital role in the creation of personal computing and the
ARPANET—the basis for the future Internet.
3 Weinberger, S. (2017). The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, The
Pentagon Agency That Changed the World. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 81.
Weinberger goes into considerable detail on Project AGILE and the role of
Deputy Director Godel in shaping DARPA’s involvement in tactical technologies
related to not only U.S. combat in Southeast Asia, but also a much broader focus
on counterinsurgency-related activities in other parts of the world. While there
were some modestly successful early technology developments under AGILE,
such as tactical remotely-piloted vehicles, much of this program was egregiously
unsuccessful with harmful repercussions, including Agent Orange and other
defoliation efforts, poorly conceived and methodologically suspect social science
forays, and the “strategic hamlets” concept of population relocation. Perhaps most
damning was the inclination of those running and overseeing these programs,
including DARPA’s director, to delude themselves that they were effective. Director
Charles Herzfeld subsequently stated, “AGILE was an abysmal failure, a glorious
failure” (Weinberger. (2017). The Imagineers of War, 185).
1. Introduction 5
test detection (VELA)) had essentially run their course. Indeed, as early
as 1965, Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance, “came to advocate
abolishing the Agency”.4 The 1965–1970 era was a crisis period. DARPA
evolved both organizationally and programmatically from this crisis
largely due to John S. Foster, who became Director of the Defense
Research and Engineering (DDR&E)5 in 1965 and remained for eight
years. By the mid-1970s DARPA had jettisoned the AGILE program
and transitioned DEFENDER to the Army. DARPA was explicitly
looking for new directions first under Director Eberhardt Rechtin, who
created a Strategic Technologies Office, and then his successor Steven
Lukasik, who saw AGILE as “an embarrassment” and closed it down,
transitioning parts of it into a new Tactical Technology Office. Thus,
by the mid-1970s DARPA had substantially refocused on technology
offices and moved away from the original mission-focused assignments.
Crucial to this rejuvenation was DARPA taking on a broad new focus
aimed at finding technological alternatives to the use of nuclear weapons
to respond to the Soviet Union. This was a key imperative stemming
from the concerns of President Richard Nixon and his National Security
Advisor, Henry Kissinger, and which continued with Secretary of
Defense James R. Schlesinger as a leading proponent under President
Gerald Ford. DARPA identified and developed new tactical capabilities
based on then emerging technologies through programs on stealth,
standoff precision strike, and tactical surveillance via unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs).