Welcome to Pulse, a regular digest of updates from around the directed energy ecosystem. In this week’s edition: an note on a recent New York Post article on US military laser weapons, NATO’s biggest directed energy challenge, a trio of new laser weapons break cover, and more.
No, American Laser Weapons Aren’t Downing Iranian Missiles in the Strait of Hormuz
I am quoted in a September 24 article in the New York Post discussing the development and deployment of US military laser weapons. In the course of my interview, I noted several facts:
Several Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN) systems are present aboard warships deployed to the Middle East in support of the US military campaigns against Iran, although there is no confirmation that those systems have been fired in anger (the Navy declined to comment when reached by Laser Wars.)
Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael had recently stated that US military laser weapons are “in the fight” in the Middle East, although he declined to provide details as to which systems he was referring to
AV’s LOCUST Laser Weapon System, selected for the US Army’s historic $500 million Enduring High Energy Laser (E-HEL) program and currently in action on the US southern border with Mexico as the service’s Army Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser (AMP-HEL) system, can be operated with an Xbox controller
The resulting article, however, does not say this. Instead, it conflates these three facts, stating that the US military is currently using laser weapons to shoot down missiles in the Strait of Hormuz using Xbox controllers, which is nowhere near accurate.
The most egregious error stems from the assertion that the US Defense Department had confirmed lasers are taking out “drones and incoming cruise missiles at a much lower cost than using more expensive kinetic weapons like missiles” in the Middle East. Not only has the Pentagon never explicitly confirmed this, but the supporting quote comes from an entirely unrelated Army release about AMP-HEL’s deployment to the southern border and laser weapons’ potential capabilities. (Spencer Ackerman has a great takedown of the entire article at Forever Wars.)
Unfortunately, as Jonathan Swift wrote, “falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.” Given that so much of digital media is a game of aggregation telephone, where outlets rewrite and repackage original reporting into morsels of delicious content for their attention-addled audiences, it makes complete sense that the logical result of the New York Post’s slapdash reporting is headlines like these:
I have learned a lot in the last few years of writing Laser Wars, but my favorite bit of directed energy jargon is the term “laser liar” — a (usually) well-meaning journalist who, blinded by lasers’ enduring cultural status as symbol of our sci-fi future, does a terrible job articulating the real-world potential and challenges facing directed energy weapons. After watching my careful reporting get scrambled into hot garbage over the last week, I now have a visceral picture of what that means. (And after 15 years working in digital media, I should have expected as much.)
That said, the best antidote to a laser liar isn’t frustration or cynicism – it’s documentation. Every claim I made in that interview is backed up by real-world evidence: DVIDS photos of ODIN systems aboard Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, public comments from Emil Michael at a defense forum captured by a journalist, and open-source reporting on the US military’s long love affairs with video game controllers. Directed energy weapons are coming to the battlefield, and that story is remarkable enough without embellishment.
The reason Laser Wars exists is to tell it straight, one confirmed fact at a time. The truth may come limping, but it does arrive eventually — and when it does, you’ll read it here.
