As the United States rapidly depletes its interceptor missile stockpile in the conflict with Iran—heightening strategic risks globally—laser weapons have dominated the headlines. On March 9, President Trump touted lasers as “incredible technology coming out pretty soon” that could replace Patriot systems at a fraction of the cost. To separate genuine progress from political bluster, Meidas Defense’s Joe Plenzler sat down with Jared Keller, one of the nation’s leading journalists on emerging laser weaponry, to sift through the hype and dispel myths. The thoughts below are Jared’s.
By Jared Keller, editor of Laser Wars
Ever since American physicist Theodore Maiman unveiled the laser in 1960, “laser weapons” have meant one thing in the public imagination: vivid beams of light slicing across the battlefield.
It’s a mental image shaped by decades of science fiction, from the Martian “heat-ray” of H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” to TV episodes about secret “death rays” and cinematic visions of C-beams glittering near the Tannhäuser Gate. The laser weapon is, along with the jet pack and flying car, shorthand for a familiar vision of the not-too-distant future and the technologies we’ve collectively agreed would define the world of tomorrow.
This mythology is apparently powerful enough that when publications such as The Atlantic proclaim that laser weapons are no longer science fiction, large X accounts publish footage purporting to show their use in live combat, and the President of the United States announces that more on are the way, the revelation lands with a jolt.
Yes, it’s true: high-energy laser weapons have officially escaped from military labs and are shooting down drones in the real world, often in ways that expose operational growing pains for the forces that employ them. But this isn’t a totally recent development. US military lasers have been burning drones out of the sky since 1973; for those who have been tracking directed energy programs for years, this new “revelation” feels less like a breakthrough and more like a long-delayed public acknowledgment of a decades-old defense tech dream.
Here’s the thing: lasers aren’t magic, and gawking at them like all-powerful sci-fi “wonder weapons” risks obscuring what these systems can and cannot actually achieve on the battlefield. The mythology of laser weapons fundamentally shapes how military planners and government decision-makers around the world think and talk about the technology — and that, in turn, will shape how these systems are ultimately judged.
Here are some of the limits of high-energy laser weapons and why they matter for their real-world operational use.
Instant Engagement ≠ Instant Kill
Laser beams may travel at the speed of light, but they do not destroy targets instantaneously. Unlike a bullet or a missile, which delivers kinetic energy at a single point of impact, laser weapons like those entering service around the world are typically continuous wave systems that require holding a focused beam on a target’s vulnerable point for several seconds time to inflict catastrophic damage. For a real-world example, watch this US Defense Department footage of US Marines testing a 5 kilowatt Compact Laser Weapon System (CLaWS) on a drone in the US Central Command area of operations back in January 2021 and note how long it takes the laser to actually bring down its target.
Against a small, fast-moving drone engaged in evasive maneuvers, keeping a laser beam locked on one spot for those seconds of dwell time is no trivial task. The beam itself has to stay steady, optics must continuously compensate for atmospheric distortion, and the weapon’s tracking system has to anticipate motion rather than just react to it so energy can remain focused on a specific vulnerability. Pulsed lasers that deliver energy on target in femtoseconds may circumvent these limits, but dwell time is unavoidable for continuous wave systems.
This is a major reason why laser weapons aren’t considered ideal countermeasures for saturation attacks: they can only engage one target at a time and require several seconds to do so effectively before requiring several more to lock onto the next one. Lasers have their potential applications for point defense, but they are no silver bullet for the age of drone swarms.
The ‘Infinite Magazine’ Myth
Laser weapons are often described as having an “infinite magazine.” They have no ammo to reload, no expensive (and scarce) missile stockpiles to deplete – as long as you have power, you can keep firing indefinitely.
But even a seemingly unlimited power supply does not translate cleanly into infinite ammo. Indeed, laser weapons are not self-contained ray guns: they are complex systems that encompass generators, batteries, thermal management units, and beam directors — and when these systems inevitably overheat, they require periodic cooldowns that effectively function as a “reload” even if they’re not labeled as such. When considered alongside dwell time, the limits become clear: laser weapons don’t expend ammo but time, and time is always scarce in combat.
Under the Weather
Laser weapons don’t just demand power and time, but also a clear line of sight to function effectively. Fog, dust, rain, smoke, and other obscurants can degrade beam quality, while atmospheric turbulence can scatter or weaken the energy before it reaches the target, a challenge that’s especially acute in maritime environments. There’s also the potential for thermal blooming, where an active laser heats up the air it is passing through and consequently defocuses its own beam.
There are some benefits to atmospheric interference, though: the prospect that an errant laser beam could “continue for hundreds of miles and hit, say, a commercial airliner,” as The Atlantic imagines, becomes less likely when you’re fighting haze and humidity on the ground compared to, say, firing a laser weapon in the vacuum of space. But in general, laser weapons are inherently shaped by the environment they operate in, for better or worse.
None of these limits render laser weapons useless — in fact, they help explain why they’re finding an operational niche in counter-drone missions. When it comes to defending fixed sites or capital assets like tanks or warships, small drones operating within line of sight are ideal targets for laser weapons compared to hardened cruise missiles. And the cost exchange ratio is obviously compelling: burning down a hundred- or thousand-dollar drone with a burst of electricity is comparatively cheaper than using a million-dollar missile.
Despite their sci-fi mythos, the slow emergence of laser weapons on the modern battlefield is simply a matter of decades of dedicated engineering R&D finally meeting a window of opportunity. Advances in power generation, beam control, sensor fusion, and AI-enabled target acquisition and tracking have finally converged at operational scale, but these advances have also arrived at a moment of seemingly unprecedented institutional support for laser weapons rapid development and deployment driven by the rapidly expanding threat of low-cost weaponized drones. What looks like science fiction is, in reality, the slow and steady progress of technology, just as Arthur C. Clarke imagined.
Laser weapons aren’t magic, people: they are simply novel technology optimized for specific battlefield problems. Understanding this distinction is essential if the US military, or any military, wants to actually deploy them intelligently beyond parades and propaganda.
Welcome to the Laser Wars – hope you survive the experience!
