The Bunker: Hype at the speed of light
This week in The Bunker: Lasers have occupied prime real estate in the Pentagon brain as a wonder weapon that’s cheap and effective, even as decades of experience reveal neither is true; and more.
This week in The Bunker: Lasers have occupied prime real estate in the Pentagon brain as a wonder weapon that’s cheap and effective, even as decades of experience reveal neither is true; and more.
NOT MOVING AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT
Lasers ‘R’ U.S.
When the U.S. military talks about the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s a safe bet that light isn’t a laser. Last week, there were a couple of items that focused attention — like a laser beam, you might say — on the Pentagon’s seemingly perpetual quest for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Fact is, the U.S. military has spent decades, and billions of dollars, trying to come up with a ray gun that warrants all the hype. But it’s not happening. The acronym might as well stand for Late And So Extraordinarily Rare.
LASERS OF YESTERDAY
Seeking the bottomless quiver
The Pentagon has always been enchanted by the potential of laser weapons that could focus a narrow beam of (often invisible) light to heat and melt, ignite, and/or blow up enemy aircraft, ships, tanks, and satellites. After all, the thinking goes, such weapons wouldn’t require large stockpiles of missiles, bullets, and bombs. Powered by energy, they theoretically could destroy many targets at a relatively low per-shot cost. Unfortunately, “theoretically” and “relatively” are linguistic hand grenades when it comes to Pentagon procurement. And while lasers can incinerate their targets in a perfect world, they are hampered by technical challenges. They can be disabled by poor weather, demand a lot of power, and, sci-fi scenarios to the contrary, are generally limited to short-range, line-of-sight attacks.
Back when The Bunker was just A Foxhole, the Pentagon began issuing regular editions of Soviet Military Power. Published at the dawn of the Reagan administration, these volumes sought to justify a tidal wave of cash for the Defense Department by hyping the threat posed by Moscow. And Red lasers were a key part, as the 1983 version (PDF) made clear:
The Soviets could launch the first prototype of a space-based laser antisatellite system in the late 1980s or very early 1990s. An operational system capable of attacking other satellites within a few thousand kilometers range could be established in the early 1990s (PDF). … Soviet development of moderate-power weapons capable of short-range ground-based applications such as tactical air defense and anti-personnel weapons, may well be far enough along for such systems to be fielded in the mid-1980s. In the latter half of this decade, it is possible that the Soviets could produce laser weapons for several other ground, ship and aerospace applications (PDF).
Later editions of Soviet Military Power included illustrations by Defense Intelligence Agency artists showing Soviet space- and ground-based lasers in action.
Pentagon poppycock.
All those imaginary weapons vanished — poof, into thin air — like the Soviet Union itself. But they had generated enough fear to power the Pentagon’s “Zenith Star” (PDF) and other lasers trying to match Moscow’s mythological might. Tellingly, it’s all but impossible to find Soviet Military Power, or those illustrations, on U.S. websites now. You’d think that an enterprise committed to avoiding past mistakes would make them readily available to help keep its hubris in check. But you would be wrong.
Nonwithstanding, the Pentagon has pressed ahead with an armada of laser weapons. A 2024 census came up with “at least” 31 unclassified directed-energy weapons, mostly built around lasershttps://www.emergingtechnologiesinstitute.org/-/media/ndia-eti/reports/directed-energy-weapon-supply-chains/directedenergyweaponsreportdeeti.pdf?download=1?download=1(PDF).
In 2011, the Defense Department killed the Air Force’s Airborne Laser after spending $5 billion on a chemically-fueled version crammed into a 747 cargo plane. It was supposed to orbit above or near bad guys and shoot down their missiles after launch. No way, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared. The service spent years trying to build a smaller Advanced Tactical Laser to attack ground targets from C-130 cargo planes. While boosters declared its military merit, a 2008 Air Force study found the scheme had “no operational utility” (PDF). In 2024, the service killed a second effort to put a laser aboard C-130s. That same year, the Air Force abandoned its Self-Protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator after years of work.
The Army, the Pentagon said in 2018, “is getting closer to mounting lasers on vehicles for protection against incoming enemy rocket, artillery and mortar fire.” In 2022, the service deployed a pair of high-energy ground-based LOCUST lasers to the Middle East, where they were reportedly used in combat for the first time. The Army is weighing Lockheed’s DEIMOS laser — Directed Energy Interceptor for Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense System — for use against incoming threats. On January 21, the service sought contractors to build high-energy lasers.
The Marines tested their drone-killing Compact Laser Weapons System — CLaWS — for years, before killing it.
The Navy tested shipboard lasers in 2014 and 2019, although neither has led to a full-scale program. It has also deployed the laser-based ODIN — “Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy” — with the modest goal of blinding sensors aboard enemy drones threatening U.S. warships. It has put a potentially drone-killing Lockheed HELIOS (High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance) system aboard a single ship. Lockheed’s CEO recently said HELIOS had “successfully neutralized four drone threats” during a recent test, although Laser Wars editor Jared Keller raised nagging questions about the claim.
Despite all these investments, the Navy was forced to drain its munitions stockpiles during its Red Sea skirmishes with Houthi rebels from 2023 to 2025 because it lacked “the long-planned and ever-elusive laser” weapons the Navy has spent years trying to develop.
LASERS OF TOMORROW
A future in the fleet?
The latest chapter in the U.S. push for laser weapons springs from a volatile combination — a president who embraces wonder weapons, and a senior military officer who fervently believes in them. President Trump said December 22 that lasers will be a key part of his new “Trump-class” fleet of battleships (assuming they’re ever built). “We have lasers where you aim the laser at a target and it just wipes it out,” the president enthused. “They’ll be the most sophisticated lasers in the world, and the most sophisticated laser in the world will be on the battleships that we’re building.
Admiral Daryl Caudle, the chief of naval operations, agrees. “This is the time for this. This is a vision I have,” Caudle said February 9. “I want to get behind this. I want this to work.” Caudle, who wrote his master’s thesis(PDF) on such weapons way back in 1992, said last year that the Navy should be “embarrassed” by its lack of laser weaponry. The Navy’s top officer says he views the new $12 billion battleships as a “forcing function” that could leverage lasers into other Navy warships.
Caudle’s laser fervor is admirable. Few worthwhile things are accomplished without someone pushing for change. But there are thousands of doctors around the world who for decades have been seeking a cure for cancer, just as sure as Caudle wants lasers on U.S. Navy warships. Alas, wishing doesn’t make it so. Fervor needs to be tempered with wisdom, or at least skepticism. That is something in short supply at the Pentagon, especially when silver bullets beckon.
“Large defense contractors, incentivized by the prospect of securing government funding for conducting high-risk R&D, have likely encouraged additional hype about the possibilities of developing and fielding ambitious laser weapon systems,” a 2018 article in Parameters, the Army’s leading scholarly journal, cautioned(PDF). “As America’s military seeks to retain its edge, the experience for developing laser weapons should serve as a warning about being drawn in by a technology’s promise to deliver rapid advantages.”
LASERS OF TODAY
Meanwhile, back in the real world
The first operational deployment of lasers most Americans heard about happened close to midnight on February 10. That’s when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced it was suddenly shutting down the skies over El Paso. That’s because a LOCUST laser — similar to those sent to the Middle East two years ago — had been used by U.S. border guards to shoot down a purported party balloon drifting along the Texas-Mexican border.
It seems Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lent the laser to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency to shoot down suspected drug-smuggling Mexican drones. Once the FAA learned the border guards had fired the laser without coordinating it with the FAA, the nation’s sky pilots declared that an unspecified threat to commercial aviation required them to shut down the airspace over El Paso for 10 days. It was lifted hours later, once Washington woke up and became aware of the chaos created by the domestic no-fly zone.
It wasn’t the laser debut the Pentagon wanted. The truth is that despite spending billions of dollars on dozens of laser programs, the Pentagon has little to show for it. The Defense Department’s longtime dream of offensive death rays, in fact, has been demoted to short-range drone stoppers.
Meanwhile, back in dreamland, the Defense Department says Beijing represents the next serious laser threat. “China has been pursuing directed energy weapons for decades, and has deployed multiple ground-based laser weapons with varying power levels to disrupt, degrade, or damage satellites,” the Pentagon’s latest report (PDF) on China Military Power, released in December, said.
It’s worth noting that the Pentagon said Chinese lasers may be able “to disrupt, degrade, or damage satellites.”
At least it didn’t say “destroy.”
WHAT WE’RE READING
Here’s what has caught The Bunker’s eye recently
Talk about fighting the last war…
Trump has ordered the Pentagon to buy more coal-generated electricity, the Washington Post’s Evan Halper reported February 11.
Richard Tillman, younger brother of Pat Tillman, the NFL star infamously killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004, faces up to 20 years in prison for setting a California post office ablaze. His family said last July’s incident reflected Richard’s “longtime emotional suffering,” the New York Times reported February 15. The Justice Department didn’t mention Pat Tillman when it announced that his brother had pleaded guilty to the crime.
The Pentagon’s top enlisted leaders told Congress that they have seen no evidence that women serving in combat roles has led to lower standards, Karen Jowers reported February 12 in Military Times.
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