The Pentagon has started placing laser and microwave weapons at five U.S. military bases, marking the first time directed-energy systems designed to destroy drone swarms have moved from testing ranges to operational installations on American soil. The deployments, confirmed through official Defense Department announcements in early 2025 and tracked in subsequent reporting through spring 2025, reflect a growing consensus among military planners that conventional air defenses cannot keep pace with the cheap, fast-multiplying drone threat that has already reshaped battlefields in Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Red Sea.
The move follows two major Pentagon actions. First, the Defense Department published a formal strategy for countering unmanned systems, a document whose classified core is supported by unclassified materials framing small drones as an urgent threat to both deployed forces and the U.S. homeland. Second, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin signed a memorandum establishing Joint Interagency Task Force 401, a new organization whose sole mission is to deliver affordable counter-drone capabilities across all service branches. Together, these actions amount to the Pentagon’s clearest acknowledgment yet that the era of spending a $400,000 Stinger missile to shoot down a $500 hobby drone is over.
Why the Pentagon is acting now
The urgency has a specific catalyst. Since late 2023, unexplained drone swarms have been spotted over sensitive U.S. military sites, most notably a string of nighttime incursions above Langley Air Force Base in Virginia that were first reported by The Wall Street Journal and later confirmed by defense officials. Those incidents exposed a gap: bases designed to survive missile attacks had limited tools to identify or neutralize small, low-flying unmanned aircraft operating in domestic airspace shared with civilian traffic.
Overseas, the problem is even more acute. Iranian-designed drones have struck U.S. outposts in Iraq and Syria repeatedly since October 2023. Houthi forces in Yemen have launched waves of one-way attack drones at commercial shipping and Navy warships in the Red Sea, forcing destroyers to expend multimillion-dollar salvos of SM-2 and ESSM missiles against threats that cost a fraction of the interceptors used to stop them. And in Ukraine, both sides now fly thousands of drones per month, from small first-person-view quadcopters to long-range Shahed-type strike platforms, creating a live laboratory for drone tactics and the defenses meant to counter them.
Pentagon planners have absorbed those lessons. The counter-unmanned-systems strategy explicitly frames the threat as dual-use: dangerous abroad and increasingly relevant at home. JIATF-401’s charter emphasizes “affordable” solutions, a word that appears repeatedly in the task force’s founding documents and points directly at directed-energy technology as a leading candidate.
How laser and microwave weapons work against drones
Directed-energy weapons fall into two broad families, and the Pentagon appears to be fielding both.
High-energy lasers focus an intense beam of light on a target, burning through an airframe, igniting fuel, or disabling sensors and flight-control electronics within seconds. Because the beam travels at the speed of light, there is no lead calculation and no flight time for the target to evade. Several systems are publicly known to be in advanced testing or low-rate production. Lockheed Martin’s DE-SHORAD (Directed Energy Short Range Air Defense), mounted on a Stryker armored vehicle, has been demonstrated against drones, mortars, and rockets. Raytheon’s HELWS (High Energy Laser Weapon System) is a smaller, trailer-mounted unit that the Air Force has tested at forward operating bases. Both have appeared in unclassified Pentagon budget documents and contractor press materials.
High-power microwave weapons take a different approach. Instead of burning a single target, they emit a broad cone of focused microwave radiation that can overload and destroy the circuit boards of multiple drones simultaneously, making them particularly effective against swarms. The Air Force Research Laboratory’s THOR (Tactical High-power Operational Responder) is the most publicly discussed example. THOR was designed to be shipped in a standard cargo container, set up by a small crew in hours, and powered by a generator, a profile that fits base defense at remote or austere locations.
Both weapon types share an economic advantage that drives the Pentagon’s interest: each shot costs roughly the price of the electricity needed to power the beam, estimated in various defense analyses at somewhere between one and ten dollars. Compare that with a Stinger missile at roughly $400,000 or an AIM-9X Sidewinder at over $400,000, and the math becomes obvious. Directed-energy weapons also eliminate the logistics of storing, transporting, and guarding stockpiles of explosive interceptor missiles, a significant consideration for base commanders managing force protection on tight budgets.
What the Pentagon has not disclosed
For all the official signals, significant gaps remain. No publicly available Defense Department document names the five bases receiving directed-energy systems. The Pentagon has not confirmed which specific weapon models are being installed, which contractors built them, or when each site is expected to reach initial operational capability. Independent verification of the deployment timeline is not possible from unclassified sources alone.
Performance data is similarly absent from the public record. Official releases include no test results, engagement ranges, power output levels, or success rates against representative drone targets. That matters because directed-energy weapons have historically struggled with real-world conditions. Rain, dust, smoke, and humidity can scatter or absorb a laser beam, reducing effective range. Microwave systems must be carefully tuned to avoid unintended electromagnetic interference with friendly equipment or nearby civilian infrastructure. Whether the systems now being fielded have overcome those engineering challenges is not addressed in any unclassified material.
Cost comparisons, while compelling on paper, also deserve scrutiny. The per-shot savings are real, but lifecycle costs tell a more complicated story. High-energy lasers require sophisticated cooling systems, precision optics that degrade over time, and specialized maintenance crews. Microwave weapons need robust power generation and careful electromagnetic shielding. Until the Pentagon or the Government Accountability Office publishes audited program data, broad claims about cost savings should be treated as directional rather than definitive.
The organizational relationship between JIATF-401 and the base-level deployments is also unclear. The task force’s founding memorandum establishes its mission and reporting chain but does not explicitly tie it to the directed-energy fielding. The two efforts may be coordinated under one roof or running on parallel tracks managed by different program offices. Available documents do not resolve that question.
What this means for bases and surrounding communities
For service members at the selected installations, the practical impact could be substantial. A working directed-energy defense layer would provide persistent protection against drone incursions without requiring large stockpiles of interceptor missiles. Base commanders would gain a tool that can engage targets repeatedly without reloading, simplify their ammunition supply chains, and potentially allow more flexible rules of engagement. A drone that can be disabled by a laser or microwave pulse rather than destroyed by an explosive warhead reduces the risk of falling debris in populated areas near a base perimeter.
For nearby communities, the deployments raise questions that the Pentagon has not yet addressed publicly. Electromagnetic safety zones around microwave weapons could affect how close civilians can live or work. High-power systems might interfere with commercial electronics, GPS receivers, or communications equipment. Restrictions on recreational and commercial drone flights in surrounding airspace are plausible but have not been announced. As of June 2025, no official guidance on any of these topics has been published.
A real step forward, with real unknowns
The fielding of directed-energy weapons at U.S. bases is not a paper plan or a budget request. It is a physical deployment backed by a new task force, a formal strategy, and years of battlefield evidence that small drones have become one of the most cost-effective weapons in modern warfare. The Pentagon’s willingness to move these systems out of the lab and onto operational installations signals genuine urgency.
But urgency is not the same as transparency. The absence of named bases, disclosed hardware, published performance data, and audited cost figures means the public is being asked to trust that the technology works based largely on institutional signals rather than verifiable evidence. That gap will narrow only when the Pentagon, Congress, or independent auditors release the kind of detailed program information that allows outside evaluation. Until then, the deployment of lasers and microwaves at five American military bases stands as a significant but still partially opaque milestone in the race to defend against the weapon that has, more than any other, rewritten the rules of 21st-century conflict.
More from Morning Overview
*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
