Newsweek:
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis told Congress Thursday that the U.S. military is developing the technology to shoot down North Korean missiles as they take off.
Arms experts say the technology would greatly improve the U.S.’s ability to fend off a nuclear attack from North Korea, but it probably won’t be ready for another 10 to 15 years.
“What [Mattis] is referring to is boost phase directed energy, so the idea is to have a laser on a drone, have the drones hovering in international airspace, and then once a missile is launched we zap it with a laser,” Matthew Kroenig, an expert on national security and arms control at the Atlantic Council, told Newsweek.
