Alex Alaniz
The aerial battles of the 21st century have ushered in a dilemma that defense planners can no longer afford to ignore: adversaries are flooding the skies with cheap unmanned aerial systems and missiles, while we continue to expend million-dollar interceptors to stop them in hotspots such as the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea.
The result is a losing proposition, but a solution is emerging with revolutionary capabilities: directed energy. Lasers and high-power electromagnetic systems offer reusable, deep magazine defense at pennies per shot. After decades of investment across the military branches in research and development, the value proposition is finally shifting in the technology’s favor.
Recent events highlight the urgency to deploy these systems. Between March and June of 2024, Russia launched more than 400 missiles at Ukraine. That April and again in October of the same year, Iran unleashed massive drone and missile salvos at Israel. Each attack forced Israel, the United States and allies to respond with a dense web of interceptors, from
Patriot missiles costing $3 million to $5 million each, to SM-3 rounds ranging from $10 million to $30 million apiece, to SM-6 rounds priced at around $4 million per shot. Total defense costs for Israel and allies during the April 2024 strike likely exceeded $1 billion, experts estimated.
That burn rate is not sustainable — not from an economics standpoint, and certainly not from a manufacturing standpoint. The logic is simple: an adversary can quickly bankrupt us by forcing us to trade interceptors for cheap munitions.
Directed energy offers a new path — one that does not replace expensive kinetic defensive systems but rather complements them with a reusable layer capable of defeating many types of threats before they reach their targets.
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