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We at Tomdispatch love anniversaries. So how could we have forgotten DARPA's for so many months? This very year, the Pentagon's research outfit, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), turns 50 years old. Happy birthday, DARPA! You were born as a response to the Soviet Union's launching of the first earth-girdling satellite, Sputnik, which gave Americans a mighty shock. To prevent another "technological surprise" by the Soviets -- or anybody else, anytime, ever -- the agency has grown into the Pentagon's good right arm, always there to reach into the future and grab another wild idea for weaponization. Each year, DARPA now spends about $3 billion on a two-fold mission: "to prevent technological surprise for us and to create technological surprise for our adversaries."