It is worth restating that weapons programs are often driven by perceptions of competitors’ activities. Thus it can be argued that participants in programs which operate close to the blurred lines dividing peacetime and wartime applications are obligated to project robust and plausible motivations for their work. It could, of course, be the case that DARPA is responding to specific intelligence about another state’s objectives with, for example, its recent $100 million programs incorporating Gene Drive (1) and Ecological Niche Preference Engineering (2).
Text taken from Scince article linked to on Homepage.
1 DARPA:Safe Genes, (available at https://www.darpa.mil/program/safe-genes).
2. DARPA:Young Faculty Awards 2017, (available at https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/for-universities/young-faculty-award).