Why this summer was defined by laser weapons
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Troops assigned to Joint Task Force-Southern Border down a drone with a laser in August. Photo: Daniel Huerta/DVIDS
The summer of love happened in 1967. The summer of lasers is happening right now.
- Both upset the status quo.
The big picture: These weapons, so often associated with science fiction or Congressional Research Service reports, are clawing into reality after decades of investment and experimentation.
Recent progress and other milestones include:
- The U.S. Army awarding a first-ever high-energy laser production contract, worth $465 million, to AeroVironment. The company will deliver dozens of Locust X3s over the coming years.
- Troops on the U.S.-Mexico border zapping at least 11 cartel-linked drones — what the Laser Wars blog described as the Pentagon's "first known 'kill'" with such a system.
- Ground A and Inleap Photonics, German startups building laser countermeasures, raising €9 million and €20 million, respectively. (That's almost $34 million total.)
- Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle committing a service-wide memo to directed energy, arguing that the "question is no longer whether these systems work — it is how quickly we can field them across the fleet and place them in the hands of sailors."
- U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa saying that it was using Boeing's Compact Laser Weapon System in "locations across the theater" and not in "isolation."
- Lockheed Martin and nLight winning contracts for the Joint Laser Weapon System, with the ceiling pegged at $847 million. Initial prototypes will be 150 kW strong; future versions will hit 300–500 kW.
- And both Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Pentagon chief technology officer Emil Michael attending a laser- and microwave-weapon demonstration in New Mexico.
Friction point: The promise of lasers is fantastic: dirt-cheap cost per shot, near-endless magazines and the opportunity to save bigger guns, such as Patriot interceptors or Standard Missiles, for juicier targets.
- But they are no panacea.
- Lasers can be thrown off by atmospheric conditions, like fog and sand, are reliant on power production, which can be disrupted (or take up precious space aboard a warship), and require line of sight, which means proximity to the thing trying to kill you.
- Experts have also warned of supply-chain vulnerabilities, including foreign and sole-source dependencies.
Follow the money: The Trump administration's fiscal 2027 budget blueprint included more than $2 billion for directed-energy research, development and testing.
- That's markedly more spending — proposed, at least — than in prior years, according to the Government Accountability Office's math.
- At least 31 directed-energy initiatives were underway across the U.S. military in 2024.
What we're watching: CBS News reported "a roughly 75% decrease in the number of drones probing the southern border in the Rio Grande Valley" following employment of lasers.
The bottom line: This feels like an inflection point.
Go deeper: Electromagnetic weapon zaps drone swarm in seconds
