The US gives Israel $1.2B for giant laser beam weapon
The new 'defensive' technology, unsurprisingly, could go horribly wrong in
practice
STAVROULA PABST
MAY 06, 2024
In the midst of Israel’s destructive campaign in the Gaza Strip, which has
killed at least 34,000 people to date, Congress recently approved a $15
billion U.S. military aid package to Israel.
Providing funds towards artillery and munitions development, replenishing
defense systems, and Gaza aid, the package also includes $1.2 billion
towards Israel’s sci-fiesque “Iron Beam” laser weapon, a prospective
directed energy system for air defense.
Once operational, Iron Beam’s systems appear slated to revolutionize Israel’s
defense capacities, escalate the ongoing crisis in Gaza and already boiling
tensions in the Middle East, and normalize lasers’ use in warfare as efforts
towards directed energy weapons (DEWs) intensify. What’s more, the U.S.
seems interested in procuring Iron Beam and adjacent technologies to its
own ends, perhaps facilitating DEWs’ further future proliferation.
What is Iron Beam?
A prospective successor to Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system,
which launches missiles to intercept and shoot down incoming threats within
Israeli borders, Iron Beam is a directed energy system that neutralizes or
brings down incoming projectiles with a fiber laser.
While Israel claims Iron Dome eliminates 90% of incoming threats, the
system’s weakness is its higher costs, where a single interceptor missile
costs about $50,000. In contrast, Iron Beam would produce similar results
without costly artillery, running solely on electricity to produce laser beams
that have destroyed tanks, rockets, drones, and other targets in tests.
"[Iron Beam] is a game-changer because we cannot only strike the enemy
militarily but also weaken it economically," former Israeli Prime Minister
Naftali Bennett remarked back in 2022, explaining that with Iron Beam,
“[Israel’s adversaries can] invest tens of thousands of dollars in a rocket and
we can invest two dollars to cover the cost of the electricity in shooting down
the rocket."
Bad weather can blunt the system’s effectiveness, however, which means
Iron Beam is perhaps best used in tandem with the Iron Dome system for
comprehensive air defense.
A growing interest in Directed Energy Weapons
Israel’s Iron Beam is a manifestation of governments’ decades-long interest
in DEWs, systems that can convert chemical or electrical energy into radiated
energy that can be focused to damage, destroy or neutralize adversarial
targets. Operating at rapid speeds, directed energy weapons such as lasers,
high-power microwaves, and particle beam weapons are crafted to
discreetly, quickly, and precisely hit targets without artillery.
Aware of their potential, a number of countries are developing DEWs. The UK
recently tested its “DragonFire” laser weapon, which reportedly can hit a coin
from a kilometer away. And Russia’s Peresvet laser system, designed to
disable or “blind” high-altitude spacecraft, like satellites, and the Zadira laser
system, which can shoot down drones, further, are being tested on Ukraine’s
battlefields.
Likewise, the U.S. spends about $1 billion annually to develop laser and
adjacent directed energy weaponry. Notably, the U.S. Army’s Rapid
Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office is overseeing an Indirect Fire
Protection Capability-High Energy Laser prototype program, awarding
Lockheed Martin with a contract for the project in October 2023. Once
operational, the laser is designed to counter or neutralize rockets, artillery,
mortars and other projectiles hostile to warfighters in tandem with a military’s
other defense components.
Ultimately, DEWs offer a cheap, accurate solution for militaries looking to
counter drones and other aerial threats. But their destructive capacities,
where Iron Beam’s lasers are able to neutralize and destroy many projectiles
with a simple laser fire, are clear and contribute to an ever more perilous
future for warfare.
Military aid to Israel accelerates DEW proliferation
Iron Beam’s pending operationality, whose deployment is reportedly being
expedited by manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, poses
heightened dangers within the context of Israel’s ongoing destruction of the
Gaza Strip. Although Iron Beam was created for defensive purposes, Israel
could plausibly repurpose its lasers as offensive purposes. Indeed, Israel has
previously utilized other controversial and experimental weapons systems in
Gaza, such as its new AI-powered Gospel and Lavender systems for military
targeting.
Meanwhile, just as the U.S. had purchased batteries for Israel’s Iron Dome in
the past (after October 7, it leased the two Iron Dome missile systems it
purchased back to Israel), the U.S. is considering procuring Iron Beam for
itself, suggesting that U.S. military aid to Israel is not only about assisting an
ally, but also about expanding and upping U.S. military capacities.
Ultimately, U.S. military aid to Israel enables and exacerbates its
campaign against the Palestinian people while fueling prospects for greater
conflict in the region. When applied towards projects like Iron Beam,
moreover, such funds assist the introduction and normalization of
consequential and destructive weapons systems within military contexts
without substantive public debate.
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