Wall Street Journal:
As Congress meets this month to mark up the fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act and appropriations bill, members will debate how to best meet tomorrow’s security challenges with today’s finite amount of money. The U.S. built history’s most powerful military through technological innovation. Yet our military advantage is quickly diminishing as other countries acquire comparable capabilities.
China has developed a large and growing ballistic and cruise-missile inventory capable of accurately striking targets on land and at sea over long ranges. Iran has fielded multiple antiship cruise missiles and has an arsenal of ballistic missiles that can reach targets across the Middle East and Europe. Russia has long had sophisticated ballistic and cruise missiles and has increasingly shown a willingness to use them. Other state and nonstate actors possess theater ballistic missiles and rockets that threaten the U.S. military and could be used to terrorize the civilian populations of U.S. allies.
Building and fielding these weapons comes at a fraction of the price it costs the U.S. to design, purchase and deploy defensive weapons systems. But thanks to innovations within the U.S. scientific community and the Pentagon, there is a way to maintain America’s military advantage. Directed energy weapons systems—such as electromagnetic “rail” guns, high-energy lasers and high-power microwave systems—have the potential to deliver effective offensive and defensive capabilities at a fraction of the cost of current systems…
Yet by using electricity rather than expensive jet fuels and complicated propulsion methods, directed energy weapons could be game-changers, due to their enormous capabilities and cost effectiveness. And if adequately funded, some of these weapons could be fully operational in a few years.
The U.S. Navy has developed a working prototype of a rail gun that uses electricity to fire projectiles at high speeds with great precision at incoming enemy missiles and aircraft. Already, the Navy can accurately launch projectiles at distances over 100 miles at speeds over 3,000 miles an hour.
Last year the Navy launched a trial deployment of a solid-state Laser Weapon System on board the USS Ponce in the Persian Gulf—the first effective deployment of a laser weapons system by any of the services. High-power microwave weapons that disrupt or destroy internal electronic components of enemy weapon systems are also a near-term possibility.
Within a few years, the Pentagon could field rail guns and powerful lasers to defend U.S. forces against aircraft, cruise missiles, guided rockets, artillery and mortar threats, alleviating some of the need for our current more expensive defense systems. Laser systems will be used to combat swarm attacks by weaponized small boats that act to overwhelm our sea defenses through sheer numbers of inexpensive, expendable and deadly platforms…
