Hegseth: Pentagon wants hundreds of laser weapons

NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

The U.S. military is moving rapidly to build and deploy advanced laser weapons after years of the defense industry failing to pursue directed energy arms, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Congress on Wednesday.

Mr. Hegseth testified before the House Armed Services Committee on the Pentagon’s record $1.5 trillion defense budget for fiscal 2027 and said the military needs to be armed with hundreds of directed energy weapons.

Mr. Hegseth disclosed in a prepared statement on the Pentagon’s posture, that laser weapons are one of the key high-technology arms being advanced by the Trump administration military buildup.

“Directed energy weapons represent a transformative capability, yet the defense industrial base is currently postured to produce only a limited number of prototypes,” Mr. Hegseth said, noting “significant vulnerabilities and gaps” in military laser manufacturing capabilities.

The secretary said he wants greater production with “tens to hundreds” of new laser and beam weapons.

The Pentagon is reforming procurement, war fighting tactics and policy restrictions that will “demystify” directed energy arms and integrate them into the military, he said.

The new approach will include developing new ways of using the weapons, along with better training and support infrastructure.

The goal is to “ensure that these advanced weapons can be effectively fielded to our warfighters and employed on the battlefield,” Mr. Hegseth said.

To achieve the laser weapons goals will require overcoming bureaucratic inertia and embracing new ways of thinking about high-technology warfare, Mr. Hegseth said.

The Pentagon is spurring industry to build more laser weapons as a first step, he said.

Ground-based lasers are expected to be a key element of the Golden Dome missile defense capable of disrupting or destroying enemy satellites during a future conflict.

Laser and directed energy weapons have been researched and developed by the U.S. military for decades based on their ability to provide near-instantaneous impact, rapid refire capability and low-cost per shot against enemy missiles.

During the Strategic Defense Initiative program in the 1980s, space- and ground-based lasers were studied but never deployed over problems with power generation and tracking limits.

One advanced weapon, the airborne laser, was developed using a powerful laser fired from inside an aircraft. 

The program was canceled before it could be produced.

In recent years, the Navy fielded a ship-based AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System that reportedly can destroy land, air, and sea targets for $1 per shot.

The Army has the Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense, called M-SHORAD, that is said to be able to counter drones, small boats, rockets, and artillery.

Direct energy guns included high-energy lasers that use electricity to produce a focused beam of light that can cause structural failure on a target by melting, or ignition.

Microwave weapons emit bursts of electromagnetic energy capable of disrupting or destroying electronic circuits on targets, such as drones.

A third weapon is a particle beam that use accelerated charged or neutral particles that can damage targets.

China space threat includes tracking U.S. troops

A Chinese artificial intelligence company has been tracking U.S. military operations in the Middle East, threatening U.S. forces engaged in the conflict in Iran, according to congressional testimony made public Wednesday.

Kari A. Bingen, director of the aerospace security project at the Center for Strategic International Studies, told a House subcommittee that U.S. commercial satellite companies, by contrast, have withheld imagery that details military movements in order to protect national security and avoid aiding adversaries.

Chinese companies, however, are continuing to provide similar data to adversaries, Ms. Bingen stated in prepared testimony to the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee in Europe.

“A Chinese artificial intelligence company, MizarVision, has publicly showcased its ability to track U.S. military assets and movements using satellite imagery, Iran has acquired a Chinese imagery satellite, and Russia has supported Iranian operations with its own imagery,” Ms. Bingen states.

China has emerged as a military threat in space under what President Xi Jinping calls a “space dream” for Beijing to dominate the realm by 2049, she stated.

Ms. Bingen stated that China, as well as Russia and others, are “developing and fielding an array of counterspace weapons to threaten U.S. and allied space capabilities, whether targeting satellites in orbit, their signals to/from the ground, or terrestrial equipment.”

“These counterspace weapons are being developed across attack modalities, including cyber operations, jamming and spoofing of electronic transmissions, lasers, direct ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles, and co-orbital ASATs,” she said.

China’s space weapons are capable of reaching satellites in all orbits, from low-Earth orbit to geosynchronous orbit 23,000 miles high, Ms. Bingen said.

“Recent years have seen Chinese satellites conducting what one U.S. Space Force general described as ’dogfighting’ maneuvers in low Earth orbit (LEO), along with unusual movements in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO), including a reported first-ever orbital refueling demonstration in GEO,” she stated.

The goal of space weaponry in the hands of adversaries is to degrade U.S. military capabilities in fighting and winning wars and to disrupt day-to-day life of Americans, Ms. Bingen said.

Supporting China’s space weapons are large number of satellites that are being integrated into military operations and “kill chains” for advanced weapons that has been observed practicing targeting of U.S. warships, airfields, and ports, she stated.

U.S. urged to deploy conventional weapons in space

Development of the SpaceX heavy duty launcher known as Starship Heavy could lead to a revolution in military affairs and the stationing of bombs and missiles in space, according to a physicist and semiconductor entrepreneur.

Michael Hochberg, currently a visiting scholar at Cambridge University’s Center for Geopolitics, stated in a recent article that the June attack on Iranian nuclear facilities used a fleet of B-2 bombers each carrying 30,000-pound bombs and costing around $5 million for each warplane in the operation.

The new SpaceX heavy lift booster, however, could make prepositioning bombs in space more practical and more affordable, he stated in a recent Wall Street Journal article.

“Starship will make it possible to use low Earth orbit as a parking lot for a giant space-based arsenal,” Mr. Hochberg said.

Costs of placing such payloads in orbit will decline sharply from current costs of between $700 a pound to as much as $4,500 per pound.

Starship, according to SpaceX founder and chief engineer Elon Musk, wants to reduce launch-to-orbit costs to as low as low as $4.50 per pound and Mr. Hochberg said that even $45 per pound would mark a revolutionary shift in access to space.

The reduction could lead to sending cheap, disposable weapons into orbit which in turn would allow for dispatching weapons that could land anywhere on Earth cheaply and rapidly, as fast as one hour to target any location on the globe.

“This would allow the U.S. to pre-position conventional munitions with ablation shields and inertial guidance systems to strike anywhere on Earth within minutes,” he stated.

Munitions could include bunker busters, kinetic weapons, antipersonnel, incendiaries, fuel-air explosives, cluster munitions, and antitank, antiaircraft and antiship capabilities with sophisticated terminal guidance, he said.

Space-based bombs would enable firing weapons with greater power against deeply buried targets. Strike packages also could include thousands of 200-pound, precision-guided bombs against electric grids, government buildings, railway crossings, border stations and road intersections — without risking warplanes or people.

Defense money also could be saved by eliminating the need for large numbers of land- or sea-based missile launchers or multiple bomber sorties during combat strikes.

Drones also could be deployed from space revolutionizing intelligence and surveillance with systems that can see through clouds.

Logistics and supplies also could be stored in space and dispatch to Earth.

Defending against space-based weapons will be beyond the capabilities of most sophisticated adversaries and also produce an advance deterrence against nuclear missiles.

“This could be the new way of warfare. The U.S. must get there first,” Mr. Hochberg said. “We must use all the tools of statecraft to ensure that China, Russia and other adversaries are frozen out.”

U.S. deploys advanced missiles near Taiwan

American military forces have moved advanced missile systems to a remote island in the Philippines’ Luzon Strait about 100 miles south of Taiwan, the U.S. military said.

The Army land-attack and anti-ship missile known as M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, has taken part and was fired during U.S. and Philippines military drills called Balikatan now underway in Southeast Asia.

The exercises come amid mounting tensions with China in the region.

On Monday, over 500 troops from the U.S., Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand took part in live fire drills in defeating a simulated adversary, the U.S. military said in a press statement, including a photo of a HIMARS missile firing.

“We can talk about all the capabilities we have, but the integration of those capabilities is the cornerstone of how this is done right,” said Marine Corps Col. G.J. Flynn III, commanding officer of Marine Rotational Force-Darwin, whose troops took part in counter-landing exercise.

The missile system was deployed to Itbayat, an island located in the Batanes Island Group in the Luzon Strait.

A Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, a missile system called NMESIS, also took part in the live fire drills.

Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces troops also took part in Balikatan in the annual exercises.

• Contact Bill Gertz on X @BillGertz.