PUBLISHED on August 10, 2025, 08:36 AM EDT – Key Points and Summary – The war in Ukraine has proven the urgent need for advanced air defense, and top U.S. Army officials say now is the time to field battlefield lasers.
-With drones and missiles dominating modern combat, traditional interceptors are insufficient.
U.S. Army Spc. Harry Santiago IV, assigned to the Multi-Functional Reconnaissance Company, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), launches a Skydio X2D drone on Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, Romania, July 09, 2025. V Corps provides essential support to multinational training and exercises of robust and evolving complexity, scope, scale, rigor, and operational conditions and provides targeted security force assistance alongside national and multinational corps and divisions. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Breanna Bradford)
-Directed energy weapons offer a “non-kinetic” solution with a virtually unlimited supply of firepower.
-While challenges with heat and weight remain for mobile platforms, the Army believes the technology is “pretty mature” and is pushing programs to get 20- to 300-kilowatt laser systems onto its vehicles to counter the growing threat of drone swarms.
Now Is the Time for Lasers On the Battlefield for the U.S. Army
The U.S. Army’s Air Defense Artillery is always in demand. Commanding officers want a protective shield over their troops at all times, and soldiers who work in air defense are usually busy, whether during training exercises or real engagements with an enemy.
The war in Ukraine has shown the importance of drones and missiles. Whichever side in a conflict can figure out how to keep munitions from falling on friendly troops and armored vehicles is far likelier to win on the battlefield.
Lasers Can ‘Fry’ the Way to Victory
What is the best way to achieve this task? The Patriot and THAAD air defense systems depend on ballistic interceptors, which can run out quickly. Another system may offer greater advantages: lasers that can fry an incoming drone, destroy a conventional airplane, or down an enemy missile.
Directed energy systems have an unlimited supply of firepower, but they require a hefty package of advanced technologies and continued innovation before they can be placed on light armored vehicles. They are often too heavy for mobile platforms, and they create high levels of heat that hinder performance. For now, the battlefield laser has great potential.
“We can contribute these non-kinetic effects,” Keith Krapels, head of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command’s Technical Center, said at a conference on August 4. “The technologies for laser directed energy right now are pretty mature. … We just need to pull laser directed energy across the finish line … and start producing the numbers.”
The War in Ukraine Shows That Lasers Are Needed Desperately
Krapels’ statement is exciting for defense analysts, like myself, who have called for the Army to use lasers. My 2021 book on future warfare included ground-battle scenes resembling something out of Star Wars. The Army has been working hard on such capabilities for years, and now, using the lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, is the best time to begin deploying directed energy systems.
U.S. Air Force Drones. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Basis for the Golden Dome
If the Army could successfully wield such systems from armored vehicles, it would be a good sign for President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense system, which would highly benefit from ground-based lasers.
The Programmatic Infrastructure Exists
The Fiscal Year 2026 proposal from the Department of Defense includes a set-aside for the “Enduring High Energy Laser” program. Another program, called the Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, will also seek to shorten the timeline to bring lasers to the battlefield.
Directed energy systems likely will be first deployed on infantry squad vehicles, and on the new Joint Light Tactical Vehicles. These weapons will be 20- to 30-kilowatt lasers. The new Directed Energy Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense is a more vigorous system with 300-kilowatt directed energy blasts.
“We fielded prototypes in every one of those arenas. We tested them and tested them on our instrument and ranges. And then at the request of leaders, we did what we didn’t think we were going to have to do or that team did what we didn’t think we had to do: We put them on planes, and we sent them down range in harm’s way to see how they would really work, put them at the pointy end of the spear,” Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch said at the Aug. 4 conference.
There Will be a Drone In Every Backpack
In this new era of warfare, soldiers carry their own loitering munitions. They can simply reach in their rucksacks and pull out a kamikaze drone to attack enemy troops and armored vehicles. Forces protected by laser defenses are likelier to survive on this battlefield. Thousands of swarming drones are being produced in Ukraine and Russia every month. They have taken over the fight, and soon, no army will engage in battle without some type of drone support.
In this context, lasers cannot be deployed fast enough. Personnel need to be trained, new technical manuals must be written, and the armored vehicles of the future need their lasers to be accurate and fire true. This is the only way to survive against drones.
Engineers and technicians working for U.S. defense contractors are working overtime to solve the drone question. Soldiers are ready to train on the systems, but further research needs to work out how to mount lasers onto armored vehicles.
Then, training and doctrine must be changed as the fight evolves. A future military occupational specialty will be dedicated to counter-drone warfare, and Army Basic Combat Training will evolve to prepare soldiers for this type of fight.
Lasers make the most sense to conduct counter-drone warfare. They may fire unlimited shots. If the Army can solve the problems of heat and weight, directed energy systems can be deployed soon on many armored vehicles. There will be a learning curve for the individual soldier.
Defense contractors, as well, are struggling to keep up with changing needs of the battlefield, and doctrinal concepts are shifting rapidly. Let’s look forward to an Army that has answers to the menace of kamikaze drones.
About the Author: Dr. Brent M. Eastwood
Brent M. Eastwood, PhD is the author of Don’t Turn Your Back On the World: a Conservative Foreign Policy and Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare plus two other books. Brent was the founder and CEO of a tech firm that predicted world events using artificial intelligence. He served as a legislative fellow for U.S. Senator Tim Scott and advised the senator on defense and foreign policy issues. He has taught at American University, George Washington University, and George Mason University. Brent is a former U.S. Army Infantry officer. He can be followed on X @BMEastwood.
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Swamplaw Yankee
August 11, 2025 at 2:36 am
OK: There is a partial synopsis. what is missing?
Well, the usual. First, there is no “war”. Got it in the USA, hide away. In 2014 POTUS Obama + his Democrat Cabal unilaterally greenlighted the re-start of the ancient russkie peasant 1000 year old genocide of Ukrainians. Now or 500 years back, Ukrainian fathers had to fight to stop orc ethic russkie from mass abduction of little Ukrainian children for their personal satiation and income increase of the muscovite GNP.
Putin’s ethnic sex trading horde has distinctly told you their ancient rthnic deviant psychology and the West plays along as if this is Georgia ( over there fellas) in 2008.
Second: Is this laser just a political tool for the MAGA POTUS Trump’s Cabal? Trump will not sell this “ammo” or tool, to Ukraine, as his obedience to Putin requires him to stop all donation of even sail of ammo or tools to Ukraine.
Needed ammo was kept by Trump in high contrast to the USA’s prime enemy. The Han CCP Zi regime steadily increased their cash flow into the ongoing genocide of Ukrainians.
Zi could not believe how stupid the USA MSM was. The 2025 MSM or the MAGA POTUS staff refused to outline how much cash the Zi regime was investing into the genocide of Ukrainians as a contrast to what MAGA Trump refused to balance, counter or even comprehend what the USA needed to be doing.
As Ukraine never could fund the military budget of the entire Zi “axis of evil” apparatus, the MAGA POTUS Trump continually pretends that the Zi regime is not funding the “axis” and the USA has no zero need to fund the attack/defence drone reserve that the Ukraine must create for even a one day 24-7 number.
In fact, Trump’s pants are on fire, as he listen to Zi’s demands that the industry of Ukraine must be handed over to the russkie tsarling Putin. As Trump’s pants burn Trump is so very anxious to get his unilateral slime show active in order to facilitate the free, no-cost, gifting of Ukrainians factories and homes to the orc ruskie genociders.
This :laser” has the problem of being too late. POTUS MAGA elite see the immediate sell out of Ukraine as their mission, as not applicable. not something good that he needs to crow about.
In 2014 the USA POTUS Obama made the unilateral decision to green light the re-start of the 1000 year old, genocide. In 11 years, Russkie sex traders have mass abducted tens of thousands UKRAINIANS. Yes, a laser is good to hear about, but the impaired POTUS needs to have the Aim that the WEST wins, always. Will he send a test laser this week?
If the MAGA POTUS Trump refuses to make a contract to sell or donate ammo to the Ukraine, he is donating to the Han CCP Zi regime.
The POTUS is not a POTUS in name. He is a coordinator of Trump-Putin theft of land Facility. -30-