{"id":125887,"date":"2021-08-05T18:23:43","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T01:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/air-force-directed-energy-report-argues-defensive-force-fields-may-be-just-on-the-horizon"},"modified":"2021-08-05T18:23:43","modified_gmt":"2021-08-06T01:23:43","slug":"air-force-directed-energy-report-argues-defensive-force-fields-may-be-just-on-the-horizon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/air-force-directed-energy-report-argues-defensive-force-fields-may-be-just-on-the-horizon","title":{"rendered":"Air Force Directed Energy Report Argues Defensive Force Fields May Be \u201cJust On The Horizon\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QjHGxKb6W1c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base has released a new analysis of the Department of Defense\u2019s investments into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/37646\/laser-weapons-separating-fact-from-fiction\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">directed energy technologies<\/a>, or DE. The report, titled \u201cDirected Energy Futures 2060,\u201d makes predictions about what the state of DE weapons and applications will be 40 years from now and offers a range of scenarios in which the United States might find itself either leading the field in DE or lagging behind peer-state adversaries. In examining the current state of the art of this relatively new class of weapons, the authors claim that the world has reached a \u201ctipping point\u201d in which directed energy is now critical to successful military operations.<\/p>\n<p>One of the document\u2019s most eyebrow-raising predictions is that a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/29232\/navys-advanced-aerospace-tech-boss-claims-key-ufo-patent-is-operable\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">force field<\/a>\u201d could be created by \u201ca sufficiently large fleet or constellation of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/11526\/missile-defense-agency-looking-for-high-flying-drone-for-airborne-laser-2-0\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">high-altitude DEW systems<\/a>\u201d that could provide a \u201cmissile defense umbrella, as part of a layered defense system, if such concepts prove affordable and necessary.\u201d The report cites several existing examples of what it calls \u201cforce fields,\u201d including the Active Denial System, or \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/12910\/is-the-united-states-firing-off-electricity-bombs-in-syria\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">pain ray<\/a>,\u201d as well as non-kinetic counter-drone systems, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/17796\/bae-systems-wants-its-new-microwave-close-in-weapon-system-concept-on-us-navy-ships\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">potentially counter-missile systems<\/a>, that use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/29992\/air-force-set-to-field-test-its-counter-drone-phaser-microwave-weapon-overseas-in-2020\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">high-power microwaves to disable or destroy<\/a> their targets. Most intriguingly, the press release claims that \u201cthe concept of a DE weapon creating a localized force field may be just on the horizon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base has released a new analysis of the Department of Defense\u2019s investments into directed energy technologies, or DE. The report, titled \u201cDirected Energy Futures 2060,\u201d makes predictions about what the state of DE weapons and applications will be 40 years from now and offers a range [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1488,1497,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drones","category-energy","category-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}