US needs to double down on directed energy weapons

In the 1980s, the United States faced a profound challenge: winning a conventional war in Europe against a numerically superior Soviet army.

Technological innovation – most notably the development of smart, precision munitions – provided a solution. Instead of needing tens or even hundreds of unguided munitions to hit a target, one smart munition would often suffice.

This meant that a single plane could destroy a whole series of Russian tanks in a single mission, or strike a series of logistics and infrastructure targets, with the expectation of hitting nearly every one.

This produced a revolutionary asymmetry and made huge Soviet investments obsolete. Precision provided a way to defeat scale.

Today, the US faces a similar situation: its adversaries are mass-producing drones and missiles at enormous scale. A revolutionary new technology is desperately needed in order to make this investment obsolete.

Today, China controls 70% of the world’s production of enterprise drones and 90% of the commercial drone market. They supply technology and components to Russia for its war on Ukraine. Russia uses hundreds of drones and missiles every day to attack civilian and infrastructure targets in Ukraine.

Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, has an estimated stockpile of 150,000-200,000 rockets and missiles, more than enough to overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome defenses. The defensive munitions for Iron Dome cost around US$40,000 per missile while the offensive munitions can, in many cases, cost much less.

SM-3 and SM-6 missiles, used to intercept ballistic missiles, cost between millions and tens of millions of dollars each. Drone and missile-based air war is currently offensive-dominant.

To stop China from invading Taiwan, Russia from