War Department Expands Use Of High-Energy Laser And Microwave Capabilities

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Department of War (DOW) has announced the selection of four high-energy laser and high-powered microwave systems to expand its operational capabilities across the United States.

The directed-energy systems were selected following a counter-drone pilot program by the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, according to an Oct. 5 DOW statement.

“High-energy lasers and high-powered microwave systems are tools that can be effectively used in a layered drone defense,” said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, director of the task force.

“This pilot program will test these capabilities in an operational environment so we can understand how best to integrate and sustain them to defend the homeland,” Ross said.

The four systems selected for the pilot are laser weapon systems from defense companies Boeing, Kord, and AeroVironment, and a microwave system from Epirus.

The pilot program comes after Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Jarrard said during a symposium in Alabama on Aug. 13 that American military bases were ill-equipped to defend against swarm drone attacks.

Jarrard warned that small, unmanned aircraft systems or drones were quickly proliferating in the open market, posing a major security threat in the hands of malicious actors.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) does not have the decision speed to respond to swarms of small drones, said Jarrard, who is vice commander of NORAD’s United States Element.

“We don’t have the sensors,” Jarrard said. “So we are ill-equipped right now to handle something like that, and obviously we’ve seen it used. We’re seeing it used on a daily basis around the world, and we’ve got to figure out how to mitigate that threat, but we’re not there yet.”

During a Sept. 30 address at the Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called drone warfare the “biggest battlefield revolution” in many generations.

The latest pilot phase will test the performance of the directed-energy systems, providing real-time data and feedback on requirements, costs, and best practices of these technologies, the DOW said in the statement.

‘Quality and Quantity’

Drones have played an outsized role in conflicts across the world, including the Ukraine-Russia war and the U.S.-Iran conflict.

In August, Ukraine launched one of its largest attacks against Russia, firing almost 800 drones. Russia then threatened the United Kingdom for arming Ukraine with drones. In the U.S.-Iran war, Tehran has used drones to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The War Secretary said in his Sept. 30 address that the United States has relied for 40 years on expensive weapons, focusing on quality over quantity. While this approach offered many advantages, the United States currently needs “both quality and quantity,” Hegseth said.

“An analogy is a thunderstorm,” Hegseth said. “We need bolts of lightning, high, our existing high-end kill chains, capable of striking unexpectedly and decisively. We also need steady wind and rain. Mass drones and other autonomous attrittable systems that flip the cost exchange and impose unrelenting pressure on an adversary on the battlefield.“

Meanwhile, the DOW said on Oct. 2 that a recent memo from Hegseth to senior Pentagon leaders has directed the department to remove “unnecessary barriers” delaying counter-drone capabilities.

Hegseth termed small, unmanned systems the “defining threat of our time,” and warned that the DOW’s approval for anti-drone technology tends to be snagged by red tape. The memo requires the DOW to establish a process to cut down approval times for anti-drone capabilities from months to just weeks or even days.

America’s adversaries are rapidly developing low-cost unmanned systems and deploying them for surveillance and attacks, the Secretary of War warned.

“We will not answer a fast-moving threat with a slow-moving bureaucracy,” he said.