Shaky amateur footage showing rockets apparently disappearing in bursts of sparks over Lebanon were shared online on March 2, along with claims the videos showed the results of a futuristic Israeli air defense weapon in action amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

These claims have been widely disputed, but one element of the discussion is based on reality: Since December 2025, the Israeli military has fielded a laser weapon, dubbed Iron Beam, designed to counter "various aerial threats" faced by Israel.

In Ukraine, where near-daily Russian barrages of cheap Iranian-designed kamikaze drones have upended air defense strategies, several laser weapons are being developed that the country's domestic producers claim could overcome the increasingly unsustainable expense of defensive missiles being used to counter inexpensive suicide drones.

"The cost calculus [of air defense] is punishing now," Jared Keller, a US-based laser weapons expert who publishes a newsletter on the fledgling technology, told RFE/RL. "You can't use a million-dollar missile on a $500 drone. It just doesn't make any rational sense."

Multiple attempts have been made to develop laser weapons since the first US shootdown of a drone aircraft with a laser in 1973 but the technology had remained experimental until recently.

The current push to develop laser weapons, Keller says, is largely driven by developments in low-cost drone technology such as the Shahed flying bombs being used by Russia against Ukraine. "Now there's an incentive for cheaper countermeasures, which makes lasers more and more appealing," he said.

So do laser weapons that cost only a few dollars to fire offer an answer to kamikaze drones? It depends on who you ask.

Andreas Schwer, the CEO of Electro Optical Systems, an Australian firm that recently won an $85 million contract to produce laser weapons for the Netherlands, told RFE/RL that laser weapons could potentially defend cities in Ukraine that are targeted by drone swarms.

"High-energy laser weapons are particularly well-suited to dealing with [kamikaze drone attacks] because they can engage targets very quickly and repeatedly. The ammunition for a laser is electrical power rather than missiles or ammunition." That removes the logistical requirement of reloading, Schwer says, "and allows the system to remain active continuously."

Numerous Limitations

Outside the industry, however, observers point out numerous limitations of current laser weaponry that make it likely it will emerge as only one factor among many within future air defense networks.

Keller points to "dwell time" as a primary constraint of laser weapons. High-power laser weapons work by burning through targets, such as a drone airframe or missile skin to cause an aerodynamic or systems failure or an explosion. But that requires time and exquisite precision.

In the same way a magnifying glass focusing sunlight requires several seconds to burn through paper, high energy laser beams also require dwell time, which can vary depending on the material of the aerial target and its movements and distance.

"As opposed to a missile launcher that can fire off multiple interceptor missiles at once, a laser has to lock onto a target and direct the beam onto it in the same place," Keller told RFE/RL, "and only then you reacquire a new target."

The destructive power of lasers can be drastically reduced by rain, mist, or dust in the atmosphere. A 2014 study found that, in moderate rain, a laser needed some 30 seconds of dwell time to damage a target 1 kilometer from the weapon. On a clear day just three seconds was needed to do the same damage.

Manufacturers tout lasers' lack of potential collateral damage, unlike air-defense weapons that can veer off course with fatal results . But lasers also present a novel risk to civilians.

On February 10, the airspace of El Paso, Texas, was abruptly shut down after a US border patrol fired a laser weapon at an airborne object that was later alleged to be a party balloon. In response to the use of the weapon, the US aviation authority grounded all flights in the area. The "chaos" caused by airliners being grounded for around eight hours served as a wakeup call that lasers could cause damage to aircraft even far from the weapon or its intended target. Civilian aviation agencies are unlikely to run any risk of such an incident taking place.

Jamey Jacob , a professor of aerospace engineering at Oklahoma State University, says the emergence of laser weaponry on the modern battlefield is likely to spark further evolution in attack-drone design. That could include heat-resistant shielding or drones that rotate to avoid any one point on their airframe being targeted.

"In the end, this is all a game of cat and mouse," he told RFE/RL. "Once you have an effective defense against a threat that effectively or substantially neutralizes it, a new variant of the threat emerges. That is the nature of modern war."