Directed Energy Weapons Mature

As our military hardware grows in sophistication and capability, so do the price tags.  For example, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier costs up to $5 billion and carries up to $3 billion worth of aircraft.  Yet, in spite of the high-tech, high-cost countermeasures that protect our hardware, there are significant chinks in the armor.  Consider how a speed boat loaded with explosives nearly sank the destroyer USS Cole in 2000.

These types of low-cost, improvised attacks are termed “asymmetrical threats.”  Of course, “low-cost” is a relative term, but if a million-dollar missile can take out a $5 billion aircraft carrier, even it would be considered low-cost.  With the proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, and even long-range ballistic missiles in the arsenals of hostile dictators and terrorist groups, this scenario becomes very real.  Other threats include high-speed small boat attacks, submerged mines, and other attack systems — and historically, there’s been no cost-effective way to respond.

Fortunately, there is a class of weapons poised to fill this security void and protect against asymmetrical threats.  They are Directed Energy Weapons.¹

These weapons emit a beam of electromagnetic energy aimed at a target, as opposed to traditional weapons that send a projectile with or without an explosive charge.  This energy creates the desired effect, which may be nonlethal or lethal.  Some of the most notable categories of these new weapons include laser, radio frequency, microwave, and sonic.

Laser Directed Energy Weapons have recently received significant attention because of positive test results, as well as at least six big advantages that they offer compared to conventional weapons in countering asymmetrical threats.  These advantages are:

1. A laser beam travels at the speed of light, so hitting a fast or evasive moving target is not an issue, even over long distances.
2. Once the target is identified, the beam can reach it almost instantly, which is ideal for dealing with supersonic threats at close range.
3. Lasers can potentially attack multiple targets at nearly the same moment.
4. Light is negligibly affected by gravity and wind, so adjustments on targets do not have to be made to deal with these environmental factors.
5. With a sufficient power source, ammunition is essentially limitless.
6. Laser weapons can have a much larger operational range than that of ballistic weapons.

The first real proposal for the deployment of laser weapons was embodied in Ronald Reagan’s “Strategic Defense Initiative.”  The idea was to place lasers in space to bring down Soviet missiles in flight.  Called “Star Wars,” it was way ahead of its time technologically, but, it achieved its primary purpose of forcing the Soviet Union to spend its way into oblivion while trying to develop counter-measures.

Today, such a system could protect the nation from the threats it faces in the 21^st century.  And while many Americans dismissed “Star Wars” as an unnecessary expense, the reaction to the Directed Energy Weapons concept has been overwhelmingly positive.  In fact, a nation-wide poll published in 2009 showed that 88 percent of registered voters were in favor of a national missile defense system to counter the threat from rogue nations and their terrorist allies.²

Meanwhile, the reality of Directed Energy Weapons has inched forward with stops and starts.  A big boost came in 2001 when George W. Bush announced that he would deploy what he called “a real and robust missile defense system.”  The result was a three-tiered approach that uses a revolutionary airborne laser system for its first tier.

Mounted inside of a highly modified Boeing 747, this laser can automatically find, track, and kill missiles with a three- to five-second burst of destructive energy that is fired from a turret in the nose.  After nearly 15 years of refinement and upgrades, tests of this system have proven successful.  In January 2010, The U.S. Missile Defense Agency announced it had successfully conducted “the first directed energy lethal intercept demonstration against a liquid-fuel boosting ballistic missile target from an airborne platform.”³ This technology promises to be particularly effective in dealing with rogue nations that possess a limited number of missiles and warheads.

However, the technology will not be fully deployed in the near future.  Despite the successful testing of Directed Energy Weapons technology, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates trimmed the Missile Defense Agency’s budget from $401 million to $187 million in 2010, scuttling the chance of a second laser-equipped 747 being built until later in the decade.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy has made real progress in using Directed Energy Weapons to respond to asymmetrical threats to our fleet.⁴ In April 2011, the Navy tested a ship-based laser against a small speed boat, roughly analogous to the boat that nearly sank the Cole.  Even though the Navy cruiser that fired the laser and the speed boat in the test were both bouncing in choppy water, the laser successfully destroyed the target.

At present, the Department of Defense is focusing its limited research funds primarily on this class of Directed Energy Weapons, which intercept short-range projectiles such as anti-ship missiles, as well as UAVs and small ships.

Given this trend, we offer the following three forecasts for your consideration:

First, as Directed Energy Weapon technology continues to prove itself, public support will continue to grow.

Because of our country’s long-standing heritage of technological leadership, we’ve developed an expectation that we can meet any technological challenge.  So as tests prove successful, commitment to this new category of weaponry will strengthen even further.  Research and development of such weapons will be easier to fund, knowing that taxpayers are behind it.  Driving this support is the reality that the number of countries with ballistic missiles has tripled since the ABM Treaty was signed in 1972.  Many of these countries are hostile to the interests of the U.S. and its allies.  Directed Energy Weapons will be seen as an effective answer to these growing threats.

Second, all the nations with large military budgets, including the U.S., Russia, China, and Israel, will become extensive users of Directed Energy Weapons technology.⁵

With the growing threat from rogue nations and the new types of wars that are expected, these countries will adopt Directed Energy Weapons solutions, which will be effective against the isolated attacks of these new enemies.  Already, Israel is working with the U.S. on a Directed Energy Weapons system to deal with the Hamas rocket threat.  Tactical deployments of this technology are well-suited to protecting urban areas or military bases that are vulnerable to attack from short-range rockets, such as Kabul and Baghdad.  Such systems could also provide an additional layer of security at high-profile events, like the global economic summits attended by multiple heads of state.  On the darker side, China and other countries may use nonlethal Directed Energy Weapons to suppress large-scale demonstrations.  As such, Directed Energy Weapons may enable these countries to keep events from spiraling out of control.

Third, pioneering development of Directed Energy Weapons for missile defense technology is likely to represent a nearly insurmountable advantage for the U.S.

While offensive missile technology has been proliferating worldwide, missile defense technology has remained far beyond the capabilities of nations like North Korea or Iran.  It is, in effect, equivalent to having a state-of-the-art space program.  As a result, no nation that might conceivably present a missile threat to the U.S. and its allies could build its own missile defense system.  With that in mind, those countries that are friendly to the U.S. will be brought into a coalition and protected, making the missiles of hostile nations useful only against other nations hostile to the U.S.  In short, on a 15-to-30-year timeline, allied nations will increasingly exist under the protective umbrella of an American-led global missile defense system.