Navy’s top admiral touts lasers as partial answer to ‘finite’ missile stockpiles

The U.S. Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations on Wednesday advocated for accelerated development of laser weapons as a partial solution to the depletion of missiles in conflicts such as the current war with Iran.

“For decades, directed energy has been described as a future capability,” Adm. Daryl Caudle wrote in a Navy-wide memorandum. “That future has arrived.”

“Directed energy operates at the speed of light, allowing sailors to engage threats rapidly with precision and reduced collateral damage,” Caudle wrote.

Caudle’s statement comes at a time when the heavy use of U.S. missiles in the conflict with Iran has depleted stockpiles. Experts have also pointed to the heavy use of expensive air defense missiles such as the PAC-3 Patriot and the THAAD system to destroy relatively inexpensive Iranian drones.

In a signed Opinion section piece in the Washington Post published Wednesday, Caudle said traditional anti-missile defenses are prone to rapid depletion. 

“A defender who fires multimillion-dollar interceptors against inexpensive drones may win the immediate engagement while losing the larger campaign of endurance,” Caudle wrote in the Post.

“Lasers offer the possibility of shifting part of naval defense away from finite stored munitions toward shipboard electrical power,” the admiral said in the opinion piece. 

Caudle has advocated laser weapons during hearings before Congress and at defense industry conferences such as SEA West in San Diego last year.

Laser Wars, a website covering energy weapons, reported that Caudle is pushing Containerized Capability Campaign (C³), “a doctrine built around cramming novel capabilities into standardized containers that can be swapped across platforms.”

The Navy already uses HELIOS (High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance). It is a 60-kilowatt laser that is designed to disable, degrade or potentially destroy drones and smaller sea-surface drones, as well as small manned attack boats.

ODIN (Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy) is also in limited service on some Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. It’s meant to dazzle, blind, and disorient sensors on drones or ships.

“The question is no longer whether these systems work — it is how quickly we can field them across the fleet and place them in the hands of sailors,” Caudle wrote. “For too long, we have viewed directed energy as an emerging technology rather than an operational capability. That must change.”

Caudle wrote that the U.S. can harness the energy of its ships to convert electrical power into concentrated energy to produce destructive or disorienting “combat effects.”

“Electrical power is becoming combat power,” Caudle wrote. “How we generate it, store it, distribute it, protect it and employ it will increasingly determine our combat effectiveness.”

Sailors should understand that directed energy will be increasingly important to the future fight.

“The future fight will reward the fleet that sees first, decides first, delivers effects first, and sustains combat power longer than its adversary,” Caudle said. “The fleet that can generate electrical power, convert it into combat effects and adapt faster than its opponent will hold the advantage at sea. Directed energy is a critical step toward building that future fleet.”