Vice Adm. James Kilby has told lawmakers that Ukraine is roughly two years ahead of the U.S. Army in fielding laser weapons against drones, raising pointed questions about the pace of American high-energy laser programs. His assessment, delivered on Capitol Hill, contrasted Ukraine’s rapid wartime improvisation with the United States’ more deliberate acquisition cycle. The comparison matters because both countries are racing to counter cheap aerial threats, which can overwhelm traditional air defenses.
Kilby’s warning landed as the Army continues to develop its Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense, or M-SHORAD, a key effort to mount lasers on armored vehicles. That program has been moving through formal testing and contracting steps since 2019, while Ukrainian forces have tried to adapt laser concepts directly on the battlefield. The gap he described has sharpened debate over whether U.S. forces are moving fast enough to keep pace with real-world combat lessons.
What the admiral’s “two years ahead” claim really means
Kilby’s comment about Ukraine being “two years ahead” did not come with a public technical dossier, and there is no primary documentation in open sources that details the Ukrainian systems he had in mind. His comparison instead appears to rest on how quickly Ukrainian units have experimented with directed-energy concepts to knock down small drones, compared with the multi-year development arc of formal U.S. programs. Without a transcript or supporting data, the remark functions more as a warning signal than a precise engineering benchmark, and it highlights how combat urgency can compress timelines in ways peacetime programs rarely match.
The admiral’s framing also reflects a broader concern inside the Pentagon that adversaries and partners facing immediate threats are cycling through prototypes faster than the United States. Ukraine has been forced to find low-cost counters to Russian drones that can be produced and modified in months rather than years. Kilby’s suggestion that Kyiv is ahead implies that the U.S. Army risks learning secondhand from allies instead of shaping the technology curve itself. At the same time, his statement remains only partially verifiable, since there is no matching dataset on Ukrainian lasers that can be compared directly with U.S. Army test results.
Inside the Army’s DE M-SHORAD laser effort
The main U.S. reference point for high-energy laser air defense is the Army’s Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense Increment 2, which focuses on a directed-energy variant known as DE M-SHORAD. A summary from the Congressional Research Service describes DE M-SHORAD as a system that incorporates a 50 kW laser on a maneuver platform, giving armored units a way to engage drones and other low-altitude threats without expending traditional missiles. That same research summary explains that development of M-SHORAD Increment 2 began in 2019, which sets a clear starting point for the Army’s current generation of laser work.
According to the Congressional Research Service document, the Army held a competitive shoot-off before selecting an industry partner and ultimately awarded $123M to Raytheon for developmental work on M-SHORAD. The summary notes that user assessment activities are built into the schedule, giving soldiers a structured chance to evaluate performance and reliability under realistic conditions. It also points to a planned selection of an “Enduring High Energy Laser” for M-SHORAD, signaling that the current 50 kW configuration is part of a longer path toward a more permanent capability. Taken together, those details show that the Army is following a defined acquisition pathway with clear milestones rather than improvising in the field.
Why Ukraine’s wartime pace looks different
Kilby’s comparison between Ukraine and the U.S. Army speaks to the difference between wartime adaptation and peacetime acquisition rules. Ukraine, fighting a high-intensity conflict, has strong incentives to accept higher technical risk in exchange for any tool that can cheaply burn through or blind small drones. That environment encourages quick prototyping, rapid field trials and incremental fixes based on what survives contact with Russian forces. By contrast, the Army’s DE M-SHORAD path, as described by the Congressional Research Service, is built around structured testing, user assessment and eventual selection of an enduring laser solution, which tends to stretch timelines even when funding is available.
This contrast helps explain how an admiral could look at Ukrainian experimentation and conclude that Kyiv is effectively two years ahead in applying lasers to real combat problems. Ukraine’s approach is not constrained by the same layers of oversight and long-term sustainment planning that shape U.S. programs such as M-SHORAD Increment 2. Yet the American method aims to deliver a repeatable system that can be produced at scale, integrated with doctrine and supported across global deployments. Kilby’s warning therefore highlights a trade-off: Ukraine may be ahead in field experience, while the U.S. Army is investing in a system that is meant to remain viable for many years once the “Enduring High Energy Laser” choice is made.
Gaps in data and what can actually be measured
Despite the sharpness of Kilby’s “two years ahead” line, the available public record leaves large gaps in what can be measured. There is no equivalent of the Congressional Research Service’s M-SHORAD summary for Ukrainian laser projects, which means there is no verified list of power levels, contract values or development start dates for Kyiv’s efforts. The U.S. side, by contrast, is documented in detail: the Army’s Increment 2 work started in 2019, the DE M-SHORAD configuration includes a 50 kW laser, and Raytheon received a $123M development award after a shoot-off, all according to the same Congressional research product. Without matching figures from Ukraine, any direct comparison of maturity remains partly speculative.
The lack of hard Ukrainian data also limits assessments of battlefield performance. The Congressional summary notes that M-SHORAD includes user assessment timelines, which will eventually generate formal test reports on how the 50 kW laser performs in realistic conditions. No equivalent public testing archive exists for Ukraine’s wartime prototypes, and battlefield claims have not been matched to declassified evaluations. Kilby’s remark therefore functions more as a strategic warning about tempo and urgency than as a precise technical verdict. Analysts who take his comment seriously still have to work within the documented U.S. numbers and schedules while marking Ukrainian capabilities as “Unverified based on available sources.”
What the admiral’s warning means for U.S. planners
Even with those gaps, Kilby’s comparison is already shaping how policymakers talk about directed-energy priorities. The Congressional Research Service’s description of a planned “Enduring High Energy Laser” selection for M-SHORAD suggests that the Army is preparing to lock in a long-term solution once user assessments are complete. Kilby’s argument that Ukraine is ahead can be read as pressure to compress that decision cycle, so that lessons from the 50 kW DE M-SHORAD trials feed more quickly into a fielded capability. The fact that Raytheon’s $123M contract followed a shoot-off also shows that the Army is willing to use competitive events to speed choices when it has multiple options on the table.
For U.S. planners, the stakes go beyond one program. If Ukraine’s experience convinces Congress that directed-energy air defenses are no longer experimental, lawmakers may push for faster scaling of systems like DE M-SHORAD once the “Enduring High Energy Laser” is chosen. Kilby’s warning also invites closer cooperation with partners who are testing lasers under fire, so that U.S. forces can align tactics and maintenance practices ahead of large deployments. At the same time, the detailed schedule laid out for M-SHORAD Increment 2 reminds decision-makers that cutting corners on testing can create long-term reliability problems. The challenge now is to absorb the urgency behind the admiral’s “two years ahead” claim without discarding the structured assessment process that the Congressional Research Service has documented for the Army’s flagship laser program.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
