AI Summary
5 min readWhy Laser Beams Are the Hottest New Tech in Defense
The U.S. military has spent over $15 billion on research and development for directed energy weapons, and that spending is finally transitioning from R&D into actual procurement. The market for these systems is projected to grow from $6-8 billion today to two or three times that over the next decade, driven by a brutal economic reality: the U.S. is spending $4.1 million PAC-3 interceptors to shoot down $30,000 Iranian drones, and that math doesn't work in a prolonged conflict.
What Directed Energy Weapons Actually Are
Wayne Sanders, a former U.S. Army colonel and now senior defense research analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, explains that "directed energy" covers two fundamentally different technologies. Lasers concentrate energy into a narrow beam and attack one target at a time—they're "a sniper rifle." High-powered microwaves, by contrast, are "the electronic shotgun": they generate peak power up to 100 megawatts and can affect multiple systems simultaneously by frying their electronics.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Host Intro & The "Colonel Sanders" Name Problem** - Tracy and Joe banter about the guest's name and introduce the topic of directed energy weapons.
- 2 (03:45) **Guest Introduction: Wayne Sanders** - The hosts introduce Wayne Sanders, Senior Defense Research Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence and a former U.S. Army Colonel.
- 3 (10:04) **Definition: Directed Energy vs. Lasers vs. Microwaves** - Wayne provides a clear, foundational definition of the three key terms.
- 4 (13:05) **The Power Problem: Where Does the Energy Come From?** - The hosts ask about the massive energy requirements, a core constraint of the technology.
- 5 (18:05) **The History: From Chemical Lasers to the 747** - Wayne explains the technological arc from the 1960s to the present.
- 6 (20:43) **The "Phaser" Question: Why No Handheld Laser Guns?** - Tracy asks why we don't have the handheld laser rifles seen in sci-fi movies, leading to a discussion of the core bottleneck.
- 7 (23:33) **Cost Per Kill & The "Layered Air Defense" Concept** - The hosts explore the economic argument for directed energy versus traditional missiles.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
Our guest today is Colonel Sanders. More precisely, we speak with Wayne Sanders, a retired US army colonel who is currently senior defense research analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. During his military career, Sanders specialized in cybersecurity and weapon systems research and his work for BI has recently focused on directed energy weapon systems — better known as lasers. Just a few decades ago, programs like Star Wars, the Reagan-era missile defense system, seemed like a pipedream; today lasers can shoot down missiles and much more. Sanders tells us about the physics problems researchers had to solve to make laser weapons a reality, why we still don't have laser guns, what makes a weapons system "exquisite," the economic costs that factor into battlefield decisions, and the unique supply chain constraints that affect laser development.
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