Building Greece's DARPA
one mechanical elephant at a time
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Building Greece’s DARPA
In the 1960s, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) commissioned a study for new vehicle designs. The US was fighting a war in Vietnam and DARPA wanted to find a better way to move troops and equipment in its difficult jungle terrain. This led to one of the wildest scientific projects of all time: researching the creation of mechanical elephants.
The mechanical elephant program was short-lived. DARPA’s Director shut it down soon after he found out, fearing that such a crazy idea would invite further scrutiny and potential funding cuts from Congress. But this was just one of many “crazy” research programs that took place in DARPA since the agency’s founding. Others include: wireless brain-to-brain telepathy, auto-repairable houses, hand-held fusion reactors, killer robo-bees, and even a terrorism futures market.
These ideas might seem far-fetched. But you know what else seemed that way a few decades ago?
Sending a message to your aunt in real-time on the other side of the world. Thanks to the internet (whose foundations started with the ARPANET network built by DARPA in the 1960s) today that’s easier than ever.
Navigating, tracking and timing distances correctly. Thanks to research on GPS miniaturized receivers, we now have full information about locations, routes and people (or items) in transit.
Hiding in plain sight. Thanks to the Lockheed Have Blue POC and accompanying research, stealth aircraft left sci-fi and became real-life.
Getting scientific predictions about the weather. Thanks to the early weather satellites co-developed by DARPA, modern meteorology was born.
DARPA has been the catalyst for many technologies that defined humanity since the mid-20th century. Yes, ideas like mechanical elephants might have been flops. But many other weren’t. The internet transformed the entire world. Stealth technology ensured US aerial supremacy for decades during the Cold War. And that’s just a tiny fraction of the innovations DARPA produced.
So what lessons can we draw from DARPA’s success? And what could a small country like Greece (facing a laundry list of internal and external threats) learn from a process that almost gave birth to mechanical elephants?
Learning from the DARPA model
Changing the world does not come without the risk of failure. This is why the mechanical elephants story is so important: the process of innovation requires an environment conducive to (repeated) flops in order for (radical) successes to be born. It requires a group of individuals who can think beyond the limits of what is possible today in order to surpass them tomorrow.
So how was the level of DARPA’s sustained innovation ever possible?
Political will. DARPA needed President’s Dwight D. Eisenhower early conviction in 1958 to get started. But it also required the bipartisan support of Congress and many different Presidents for almost 70 years now to support the mission of the agency.
Large budget. DARPA invests billions on research projects every year. Last year’s budget requested surpassed $4.3 billion. Continuous funding made sure the agency always has necessary resources to produce innovative outcomes.
High ambition. The research facilitated by DARPA does not just look to introduce small incremental improvements. It aims to enable entire leaps in technologies and our understanding of the world. This means betting on risky projects and trying new things all the time.
Long-term mindset. DARPA is not fixated in the present. Most of the projects take years, if not decades, to pan out. While there has been a focus on tangible results, this is coupled with a deeply rooted mentality of long-term planning and creating generational outcomes.
One more thing: DARPA has never been a public sector project operating in vacuum. It always worked hand-in-hand with the private sector.
DARPA provided the funding, tooling and testing ground for many cutting-edge technologies that American companies developed through the years. Without DARPA (and NASA), US tech dominance would look significantly less exceptional.
The DARPA influence around the world
It’s not just the US. Many other countries have followed the DARPA model.
The UK has built the Advanced Research & Invention Agency (ARIA). France has created the Agence de l'innovation de défense (AID). Israel has the Directorate of Defense, Research & Development (DDR&D). China has the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND). And even Turkey has the TÜBİTAK Defense Industries Research and Development Institute (TÜBİTAK-SAGE).
In almost every case, defense is a key part of the equation. Whether we like it or not, all countries are forced to take their external security and internal safety seriously, some more than others. These existential questions play an important role at the heart of statecraft, especially during times of war, bilateral threats or global instability.
That’s not a coincidence. Some of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century happened around World War II and many followed during the Cold War arms-race between US and the Soviet Union. In fact, DARPA itself was created as a response to the Soviets launching Sputnik 1, the first ever artificial Earth satellite, in 1957. All other agencies followed as a response to DARPA’s success.
How would a Greek DARPA look like?
Given its geostrategic location between West and East, as well as the threatening nature of its larger neighbor Turkey, one would expect Greece to have invested considerable resources in building a DARPA-like entity in the country. And yet, this never happened.
Through the years, the country has made (some) progress in bringing its great raw scientific talent closer to its national security apparatus. But most of the efforts have been scattershot, disconnected, underfunded, heavily politicized, extremely academic and often short-lived. It feels like whatever Greece has tried so far falls significantly short of what it could have achieved if there was a unified approach to defense-oriented R&D.
Greece has a number of research institutes that fall under the wider umbrella of DARPA-style activities:
Demokritos, the country’s National Centre of Scientific Research
Athena Research Center, which focuses on Informatics and Computational Sciences, and is also home to the Archimedes AI & Data Science unit and (temporarily) HERON, the Hellenic Robotics Center of Excellence
CERTH, a leading Centre for Research & Technology
FORTH, perhaps the largest cluster of research institutes in the country
HAI, the Hellenic Aerospace Industry, a state-owned defense company
HIAS, the Hellenic Institute of Advanced Studies
HCDI, the newly formed Hellenic Center for Defence Innovation
Some of the best Greek scientists in the world are employed by or affiliated with these centers and consistently produce world class research. And yet, a very small portion of these (often, highly academic) contributions have managed to enter the market successfully, meaningfully transform Greece for the better or provide the country with an operational, economic or defensive edge.
This is is a wasted opportunity of colossal proportions.
It’s time for Greece to build a centralized, systematic, apolitical, well-funded, industry-connected defense-oriented R&D unit. It’s time for a Greek DARPA.
Sadly, none of the entities mentioned above possess alone the elements necessary to make up for a proper DARPA-like agency. That includes HDCI, which is a valuable improvement, but still a far stretch from a powerful defense-fueled R&D centre (it is currently playing a much more ecosystem-supportive role).
A successful Greek DARPA agency would need the following characteristics:
A world-class team. None of the partisan lackeys and governing party friends that tend to crowd similar organizations in Greece. Rather, it needs a group of stellar scientists, military liaisons, administrators and visionary leaders.
True autonomy. Real distance from the worst parts of the Greek public sector and significant leeway to operate away from political considerations. It should be treated as an independent force-multiplier for the country.
Small-scale but also long-term experiments. Both are necessary. Quick wins are important but so are long-tail projects with transformative impact.
Significant funding. A big budget will be required with a portion secured upfront for at least a number of years. Greece needs to think big. A well-funded agency can attract top Greek scientists from abroad but also retain a significant portion of talented young Greeks who leave the country today.
Connection to industry. There needs to be a direct and open link with the commercial world, including public-private partnerships and grants to new startups (both equity-based and dilutive).
Political unity. An initiative of such scale and importance does not have room for ideologies. There should be a united national effort behind such an agency, over and above partisan lines.
Bridge with the diaspora. The large cluster of talented Greek scientists, engineers and professionals abroad should be engaged and leveraged.
Time to be bold
If Greece wants to keep up with the rest of the world in an age of global asymmetric threats and rapid technological changes, it will need more than just great weather, fantastic food and a beautiful scenery.
A Greek defense R&D powerhouse has the potential to channel the country’s amazing local talent into real-world breakthroughs and actionable solutions.
Creating Greece’s DARPA is a bold but necessary step for the country.
Time to build our own equivalent of mechanical elephants.
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