Category Archives: War At The Speed Of Light

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China’s Laser Weapons

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This is an edited excerpt from my new book, War At The Speed Of Light.

Significant evidence indicates that China is developing laser weapons. Jane’s 360 reported, “Chinese media have reported that a prototype laser weapon is being tested by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). An article published on 5 April [2019] on the Sina news website contains several screengrabs taken from footage broadcast by China Central Television (CCTV) showing a trainable optical device mounted on a mobile chassis with a large main lens.”

China’s laser weapon appeared in a promotional video broadcast by state-run channel CCTV. The transmission shows it in a ground-based, vehicle-mounted application. According to Sina.com, China intends both land and sea deployment, including aboard its destroyers, as an alternative to their short-range surface-to-air missile. This last statement implies it has a range of about three miles. Beyond talking about potential applications, China provides no evidence of the laser’s capabilities.

China is using espionage to obtain any information it can on the US Navy’s developments. The Maritime Executive, a source for breaking maritime and marine news, reported, “[The] U.S. Navy has uncovered evidence of widespread and persistent hacking by Chinese actors targeting naval technology. According to a recent internal review ordered by Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, the service’s broader R&D ecosystem is “under cyber siege,” primarily by Chinese hacking teams.”

My view is that China is doing all within its capability to develop laser weapons. Given their tenacity to hack their way into the US’ most crucial intelligence information, combined with their government’s funding of advanced weapons, it is only a matter of time before they weaponize lasers. Indeed, according to ZeeNews, “The Indian and US satellites are vulnerable to China’s ground-based lasers as according to some analysts China has acquired the full capability to destroy the enemy’s satellite sensors through its lasers. China can cause great damage to Indian and US satellites during wartime.” If this last statement is true, it means China has become a laser power.

c-war

The Pace Of Warfare Is Increasing From Hyperwar To C-War

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In my latest book, War At The Speed Of Light, I coined a new term, “c-war.” This is an excerpt from the book’s introduction and explains the rationale behind this term.

The pace of warfare is accelerating. In fact, according to the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization, “So fast will be this process [command and control decision-making], especially if coupled to automatic decisions to launch artificially intelligent autonomous weapons systems capable of lethal outcomes, that a new term has been coined specifically to embrace the speed at which war will be waged: hyperwar.”

The term “hyperwar” adequately describes the quickening pace of warfare resulting from the inclusion of AI into the command, control, decision-making, and weapons of war. However, to my mind, it fails to capture the speed of conflict associated with directed energy weapons. To be all-inclusive, I would like to suggest the term “c-war.” In Einstein’s famous mass-energy equivalent equation, E = mc2, the letter “c” is used to denote the speed of light in a vacuum. [For completeness, E means energy and m mass.] Surprisingly, the speed of light in the Earth’s atmosphere is almost equal to its velocity in a vacuum. On this basis, I believe c-war more fully captures the new pace of warfare associated with directed energy weapons.

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Here’s Why The US Is Pursuing Directed Energy Weapons

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This is an excerpt from the introduction of my new book, War At The Speed Of Light.

As the US’ most capable potential adversaries deploy missile defenses that could threaten its advanced weapons systems, such as Ford-class aircraft carriers and B-2 stealth bombers, the US is developing countermeasures. Current countermeasures rely on anti-ballistic missile defense systems, such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD). These countermeasures primarily use missiles to destroy missiles, which is akin to using bullets to stop bullets.

Unfortunately, these countermeasures do not cover the complete threat spectrum. For example, THAAD is only effective against short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, not against intercontinental ballistic missiles. Also, the countermeasures can be an expensive deterrent. For example, in 2017, a US ally used a Patriot missile, priced at about three million dollars, to shoot down a small enemy quadcopter drone, available on Amazon for about two hundred dollars. Of course, the quadcopter drone had no chance against the Patriot, a radar-targeted missile more commonly used to shoot down enemy aircraft and ballistic missiles. The military terms this “overkill.” In theory, the enemy could order more of the two hundred dollar quadcopter drones from Amazon or eBay until they exhaust the US and its allies’ stock of Patriot missiles.

Given the expense of using missiles to counter enemy missiles and drones, along with their ineffectiveness across the entire threat spectrum, the US military is turning to laser and other directed energy weapons. While the price tag for hypersonic missiles continues to soar, approaching six hundred million per missile, the cost per laser pulse continues to drop, approaching about one dollar per shot. In addition, the US military feels that directed energy weapons will be effective against the entire threat spectrum, from intercontinental ballistic missiles to drone swarms.

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Laser Weapons Project Devastation At The Speed Of Light

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This is an excerpt from the introduction of my new book, War At The Speed Of Light:

Potential US adversaries, like China and Russia, are developing and deploying supersonic (i.e., faster than the speed of sound) and hypersonic missiles (i.e., five or more times faster than the speed of sound) as a means to destroy US aircraft, drones, missiles, aircraft carriers, and space-based assets, such as GPS and communication satellites. To counter this threat, the United States is developing and deploying laser weapons. However, the development of laser weapons is in its infancy. For example, in December 2014, the United States Navy installed the first-ever laser weapon on the USS Ponce. In field-testing, the United States Navy reported that the laser system worked perfectly against low-end asymmetric threats, such as small unmanned aerial vehicles. Following the field tests, the Navy authorized the commander of the Ponce to use the system as a defensive weapon. However, this is just the beginning. The US Navy’s strategy is to develop higher energy laser systems with the capability to destroy an adversary’s “carrier killer” missiles, as well as other asymmetric threats such as hypersonic missiles. In January 2018, the Navy contracted Lockheed Martin to deliver two HELIOS (High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance) systems by 2021. The Navy intends to deploy one on the USS Preble Arleigh Burke destroyer. The other will be land-based at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico for testing. In the 2020s, the US military plans to usher in the widespread use of laser weapons on land, sea, air, and space. It is reasonable to assume that these new lasers will continue the US military thrust to develop and deploy laser weapon systems capable of destroying an adversary’s supersonic, hypersonic, and intercontinental ballistic missiles, drone swarms, and space assets.

In addition to lasers, the US military is pursuing a full spectrum of directed energy weapons, including microwave, EMP, and cyberspace weapons.

 

Cyberspace

Cyberspace – The New Battlefield

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This is an excerpt from the introduction of my new book, War At The Speed Of Light.

In June 2016, NATO declared cyberspace (computer networks and the Internet) as an “operational domain,” a battlefield as real as air, sea, land, and space. This declaration recognizes cyber warfare and electronic warfare as two crucial new elements of warfare.

To succeed in this new battlespace, the US military must be equipped with capabilities to defend or attack information networks in cyberspace (i.e., cyber warfare) and to control access to the electromagnetic spectrum (i.e., electronic warfare). As a result, the US military is integrating cyber and electronic warfare to achieve an effective defense and offense in this new battlespace.

Cyberwarfare typically involves operations disrupting, exploiting, or crippling adversaries through information systems and the Internet via the use of computer code and computer applications. It often includes launching cyber weapons wirelessly. That means transmitting cyber weapons as electromagnetic radiation, similar to radio waves, traveling at the speed of light.

Until a little over a decade back, cyber warfare was the stuff of theoretical scenarios by security professionals. However, it is now apparent that hackers can cause just as much damage as traditional military attacks. We will discuss this at length in the coming chapters.

Electronic warfare is military action involving the use of directed energy to control the electromagnetic spectrum, such as radar, radio transmissions, and laser beams, to deceive or attack an enemy or to protect friendly systems from similar actions. The goal, according to the Department of Defense (DOD), is to use directed energy weapons to disrupt an electromagnetic field, resulting in jamming and deceiving information managed by computerized systems or electronic platforms, such as surveillance or telecommunication satellites. With high power, these weapons can also burn out the electric circuitry of an adversary’s weapon, resulting in the destruction or interference of its function.