Iron Beam and related technologies will make many of these drones unusable, which will prompt militaries to find new ways to attack their enemies.
By Mike Watson, The Washington Free Beacon
Amid the new offensive in Gaza City, repeated Russian encroachments into NATO airspace, and China’s relentless drive toward artificial intelligence domination, the American-led order is under intense strain.
So Israel’s latest technological breakthrough could not have come at a more opportune time for the United States and its allies.
On Wednesday, Israel’s defense ministry announced its “Iron Beam” laser air defense system has completed testing and will be operational by the end of this year.
Israel is on the cusp of solving one of the thorniest dilemmas in modern warfare. It is also showing how rapidly military technology is changing and why it is vital that the Trump administration’s defense reforms succeed.
Iron Beam can destroy incoming rockets, mortars, drones, and manned aircraft, and it has already proved its worth in the campaigns against Hezbollah and Iran.
Israel plans for it to complement Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow, which use missiles to destroy threats to the Israeli homeland.
In 5 to 10 years, Rafael chairman Yuval Steinitz predicts, “nothing hostile will fly in the air—no aircraft, no drones, no cruise missiles, no shells, no bombs—because the laser will completely clear the air of anything detected, anything seen.”
This technology will partly reverse the most significant global transformation in military technology of this century, one that has already had a major impact on American national security.
In 2000, few countries could match America’s ability to identify faraway targets and hit them with precision. But in the past two decades, America’s adversaries have learned how to make their own precision-guided munitions, often in the form of long-range missiles and, more recently, drones.
They can, at relatively little expense, threaten everything not buried deep underground.
Israel was in the crosshairs of this transformation. In 2006, Israeli forces were surprised by how effectively Hezbollah used guided anti-tank missiles.
Since then, Iran’s minions have almost continuously lobbed guided missiles, more ungainly rockets, and mortars at Israeli civilians.
Americans, Israelis, and their allies have made significant advances in air defense technology to address this threat.
With American assistance, Israel developed the Iron Dome system that swats down many of the shorter-range threats.
David’s Sling and Arrow handle bigger missiles. Americans have developed world-class defenses against more potent threats.
Vladimir Putin bragged that his hypersonic Kinzhal missiles were “invincible”—Ukrainians proved him wrong with American-made Patriots.
With American and allied help, Israel has weathered three massive waves of Iranian missile and drone attacks since Oct. 7 with relatively little damage.
Western missile defenses are top-notch, but they are also expensive. The roughly 200 interceptors American and Israeli forces launched in June cost about $1.5 billion.
This is certainly better than the alternative of hostile missiles raining down on civilians, but it is unsustainable over a long war.
The Ukrainians have resorted to using shotguns and machine guns against Russia’s massive arsenal of drones to save their scarce supply of air defense missiles.
Iron Beam solves that problem. Instead of firing an interceptor—or in some cases, several—to shoot down a missile that costs a fraction of the interceptor, Iron Beam fries the incoming weapon with lasers at about two bucks a shot.
In other words, air defense can be not only effective but also cost-effective.
Laser defenses will be particularly helpful for small, compact countries like Israel. The United States and many of its larger allies cannot fully secure their skies with laser weapons, but they can protect key targets.
If, for example, American laser systems become powerful enough to stop China’s long-range missiles from hitting aircraft carriers and key installations in the Pacific, then many of China’s vaunted “assassin’s mace” weapons will be much less valuable.
Other technological transformations will follow in short order. Armed drones were highly unusual only five years ago, and now the Russians and Ukrainians field millions of them.
Iron Beam and related technologies will make many of these drones unusable, which will prompt militaries to find new ways to attack their enemies.
American companies like Anduril, Epirus, and Saronic are already peering beyond this technological horizon to develop the sci-fi gizmos that will dominate battlefields in the future.
The U.S. military depends on its technological edge to deter and, if necessary, defeat its enemies, but that edge has been blunted.
The Trump administration is trying to force the Pentagon to move at the pace of technological change. For example, War Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed the Army to purchase and field new capabilities with utmost speed.
America’s national security depends on the success of this effort. The ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East show that many old technologies still have their value. But the slow get left behind—and die there.
