The Imagineers of War

January 2, 2017
Weinberger (Imaginary Weapons), national security editor at the Intercept, scours reams of archival material and interviews former officials of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, revealing a highly secretive organization with a fittingly mixed legacy. Following Annie Jacobsen’s 2015 book on DARPA, The Pentagon’s Brain, Weinberger’s complementary take is a deep organizational history rather than a technological chronicle. The now “$3-billion-a-year research agency” was founded in 1958 as the Advanced Research Projects Agency, with a post-Sputnik mission “to get America into space.” That quickly shifted into finding a science-based “solution to counterinsurgency.” DARPA’s real purpose has been to tackle critical national security problems while freed of bureaucratic oversight and scientific peer review. Agency scientists developed the Saturn rocket, the technologies that led to GPS, and evidence supporting the then-controversial theory of plate tectonics. Perhaps most famously, they “laid the foundations for computer networking.” DARPA has engaged in regular turf battles with competing agencies or branches of the armed forces, and some of its big risks have resulted in disastrous consequences; DARPA spent much of the early 21st century embroiled in debates over data-mining, privacy, and surveillance. Weinberger’s fascinating, if occasionally dry, account abounds with examples of technocratic arrogance in thrall to the “allure of science fiction.” Agent: Michelle Tessler, Tessler Literary.

January 1, 2017
A journey through "the agency responsible for some of the most important military and civil technologies of the past hundred years."Intercept security editor Weinberger (Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld, 2006, etc.) again sets her sights on the Department of Defense, combining historical context with a focus on waste, fraud, and abuse in one realm of the gigantic government agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, often referred to by its acronym DARPA. Cobbled together in 1958 in the aftermath of Cold War panic that the Soviet Union had launched the Sputnik satellite, the original DARPA personnel felt uncertain about their mission. The already established military services of the Army, Navy, and Air Force seemed to overlap with DARPA's amorphous mandate. Should a military agency control the government's rush to match or surpass the Sputnik launch? (At that time, NASA had not yet been created.) Weinberger traces how the pieces fell into place, focusing first on a detailed history of William Godel, a former military member who remained in government as a negotiator with foreign leaders. Godel's previously low profile receives a boost from Weinberger, a tireless researcher. The ascension of Godel leads to the crispest narrative in the book; after he exits, the story loses steam due to his many successors and the many disparate projects that ended up in DARPA's jurisdiction. Some of those projects led, at least indirectly, to the valuable creation of the nonmilitary internet plus brilliant devices that could detect tests of nuclear weapons by foreign nations. But when DARPA personnel became deeply involved in strategies to fight insurgent wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the agency waded into controversial waters that caused damage to its standing within the Pentagon. Given the complications of writing a comprehensive book about an octopuslike agency, Weinberger handles the material well. At times, though, the reading feels like parsing a government agency annual report.

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February 15, 2017
From Bond-worthy cigarette lighterscumspy cameras to sleek, radar-defying military aircraft, the inventions produced by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have, in many ways, impacted nearly every facet of contemporary life. The history of this relatively unknown Pentagon agency traces its origins to the 1950s U.S.-Russia space race, and its applications have been tested on battlefields from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Not merely the stuff of spy craft or warfare, DARPA's scientific and technological innovations may have had national defense and security inspiration, but their influence reaches far beyond the battlefield. Case in point: ARPANET, the cumbersome acronym for the military's linked computer network, which became the foundation for today's Internet. But for every stellar success, there were abject failures, such as the carcinogenic defoliant Agent Orange, used in the Vietnam War. Exploring silly schemes as well as sensible ideas, distinguished military science and technology expert Weinberger profiles the crusaders who thought outside the box in service to their country and their own limitless creativity. A fascinating and defining behind-the-scenes look at the confluence of defense politics and technological prowess.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)