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The Pentagon's Brain is a decent overview of DARPA's long history of being 10-20 years ahead of the technological curve, that unfortunately trends towards the most sensational angle on DARPA's operations, rather than developing a more nuanced understanding of the complexities involved in military R&D. Jacobsen lays out the book in four broad arcs:
The early Cold War focused on hydrogen bombs and rockets. The Vietnam War saw a shift towards gimcrack gadgets, some of which were highly successful (the M-16), some which had massive unintended consequences (Agent Orange), and some which were billion dollar failures (McNamara's electronic fence). Early attempts to understand the minds of Vietnamese villagers are almost played for laughs, with nuclear physicists overseeing social science programs. The late Cold War saw some of DARPA's biggest successes, with the ARPANET and stealth aircraft, but also a diversion into biological warfare defense that has yet to pay any concrete dividends. The post 9/11 era is dominated by fiascos. The public collapse of the Orwellian Total Information Awareness program, which would sluice through electronic data for terrorist signatures, and which was publicly shut down, but privately classified and divided out to the NSA, CIA, an FBI. Enhancing Human Performance is use to convey Frankensteinian fears of super-soldiers and mind control, with little discussion of what was actually deployed in 15 years (basically nothing). The Human Terrain Team project is an unethical boondoggle. Robotics are one bright spot in recent years.
Jacobsen is best when she sticks to her sources, getting old war stories out of 90 year old atomic physicists and the like. She's weaker at detailed documentary analysis, but the synthetic overview of almost 60 years of R&D breakthroughs is a useful first stop.
The early Cold War focused on hydrogen bombs and rockets. The Vietnam War saw a shift towards gimcrack gadgets, some of which were highly successful (the M-16), some which had massive unintended consequences (Agent Orange), and some which were billion dollar failures (McNamara's electronic fence). Early attempts to understand the minds of Vietnamese villagers are almost played for laughs, with nuclear physicists overseeing social science programs. The late Cold War saw some of DARPA's biggest successes, with the ARPANET and stealth aircraft, but also a diversion into biological warfare defense that has yet to pay any concrete dividends. The post 9/11 era is dominated by fiascos. The public collapse of the Orwellian Total Information Awareness program, which would sluice through electronic data for terrorist signatures, and which was publicly shut down, but privately classified and divided out to the NSA, CIA, an FBI. Enhancing Human Performance is use to convey Frankensteinian fears of super-soldiers and mind control, with little discussion of what was actually deployed in 15 years (basically nothing). The Human Terrain Team project is an unethical boondoggle. Robotics are one bright spot in recent years.
Jacobsen is best when she sticks to her sources, getting old war stories out of 90 year old atomic physicists and the like. She's weaker at detailed documentary analysis, but the synthetic overview of almost 60 years of R&D breakthroughs is a useful first stop.