In a recent press release, the Department of Defense unveiled its program to bring the weapons development of the United States military into the future.
At the 2018 Directed Energy Summit, held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., Michael D. Griffin, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, spoke to more than 500 senior leaders from the U.S. government and defense industry, laying out the prospective impact of integrating directed energy capabilities into the national security enterprise. To give some perspective on the man, Griffin has been in the arena of hi-tech weapons development for over three decades. He worked for the first three directors of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), established by Ronald Reagan in 1983. The agency is one of the federal organizations that deals most with cutting-edge warfighting technology.
Reminiscing back to his early days at MDA, Griffin told his audience that “directed energy was then in our view an important part of our future portfolio…it was the only way that in the long run you could see yourself competing with the threat and coming out on top.”
What are these intriguing weapons systems, and what are the factors driving their development within the US defense industry?
Like Star Wars, Just in Real-Life
Directed energy weapons are roughly defined as devices that use focused forms of energy including lasers, microwaves, and particle beams to inflict damage on a target. Directed energy is not exactly a brand new category of arms. The Nazis were experimenting with sound pulse cannons during the Second World War. US officials delivered reports that Russia had used some mysterious laser-type weapon against Chinese troops during the Sino-Soviet border conflict, although many in the intelligence community considered these assertions largely baseless.
Research into weaponizing directed energy got rolling in the US Department of Defense in the 1980s after President Reagan launched his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). From a strategic point of view, SDI was a rejection of the years-old policy relating to the waging of the Cold War known as Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD (an appropriate acronym if there ever was one). MAD was based on keeping the use of weapons of mass destruction off the strategic table by maintaining a perpetual standoff between the West and the Soviet bloc. Reagan thought that this idea was ludicrous, calling it a global “suicide pact.”
Instead, Reagan asserted the US needed to achieve strategic supremacy by gaining the technological edge over its adversaries. The emphasis on exploring new technological horizons in defense quickly earned SDI the nickname Star Wars. The formation of the Missile Defense Agency was one of the earliest steps in this broader program of the Reagan administration, and new-age weapons systems promised the capability of defending the mainland United States from a missile attack.
Since the direct energy development got off the ground over three decades ago, several distinct categories of weapons have come about, each with their strategic and tactical advantages. Some are less promising than others. Particle-beam weapons, for instance, are based on the idea of firing charged or neutral particles at a target. While researchers have concluded that particle beams as beam weapons are theoretically possible, practically speaking there are several challenges to actually developing a working prototype. The phenomenon of energy “blooming,” in which the focused particles dissipate and then lose their overall force, is one hurdle developers have yet to overcome.
Other more “stable” forms of direct energy have already been implemented in weapons systems. Laser cannons have been the most successful by far. Both the US and Russia have been producing experimental laser guns since the mid-1980s. But it wasn’t until the turn of the century that anything resembling a deployable system was built. In 2009, engineers of American defense company Northrop Grumman successfully tested an electric laser capable of producing a 100-kilowatt ray of light at Redondo Beach, California. The weapon was reportedly powerful enough to destroy cruise missiles, artillery, rockets, mortar rounds, and other standard projectiles.
Other major defense firms have followed suit, and new systems continue to be produced today. In a recent joint development program with the US Army and US Special Operations Command, Raytheon succeeded in developing a laser light workable enough to be mounted on an Apache helicopter. Lockheed Martin, a company that has been exploring directed energy for the past 40 years, offers a range of laser platforms from offensive weapons to countermeasures.
Leaping into the Future
The military and private industry have firmly established the ability to deploy directed energy weapons in real life. The US military actually has had some prototypes in use for the past several years in branches ranging from the Air Force to the Navy. What the recent Directed Energy Summit and Undersecretary Griffin’s speech in particular was all about was making these systems the norm within the military instead of the science fiction-type outliers they are today. Griffin understands that this will take a fundamental paradigm shift at many levels in order to come about. Congress and past administrations have fundamentally opposed the development of directed energy as a standard warfighting tool.
Even Reagan saw the SDI as an addition to America’s military capabilities and as a means to give the armed forces an edge, not as a total revamping of the US arsenal. “I think that has changed,” said Griffin. “When I have discussions on the Hill, there is very much a lean-forward posture now.” Convinced that the policy environment is more open to integrating his plan, Griffin is starting to be more vocal about his opinions. The Directed Energy Summit was one of his first opportunities to give over his case to a more public audience.
Griffin’s position is essentially an expansion of Reagan’s anti-MAD policy with a bit of a twist. He asserts first off that superpower competition in defense has resurfaced as a major factor in global strategy, which indeed it has. In order for the US to stay ahead in this competition, it must aggressively seek technological supremacy, not just qualitatively, but in a categorical sense. In other words, America shouldn’t just strive to have a better jet fighter or tank, but whole categories of weapons that are superior to current conventional arms. “We will not win in a man-to-man fight,” Griffin said. “We have to have the technological leverage. That realization was responsible for the creation of my office, to elevate the role of technology maturation and deployment, and I believe it is responsible for the renewed interest in directed energy weapons.”
Griffin has big plans, far beyond the newest designs being adopted by the military many hear about on the news. The undersecretary wants to expand the US arsenal to a variety of systems, from high-power microwaves to laser designs and finally figuring out how to build a working particle beam weapon.
It remains to be seen how Griffin’s advocacy will pay off. The recent Summit in Washington may go down as a turning point in American defense strategy.
