Cheap drones have humbled expensive air defenses for years now. The Pentagon’s answer keeps coming back to the same idea: a weapon that fires light, costs pennies a shot, and never runs out of magazine. This week a senior Defense Department official told industry to stop talking about it and start flying it.

Mike Dodd, the assistant secretary of defense for critical technologies, used an 12 August post on X to push for “lighter, more efficient” directed-energy weapons small enough to ride on aircraft — for shooting down drones, for special operations, and for jamming an enemy’s command links.

“Size, weight, and power decide what flies”

That line, from Dodd’s post, is the whole problem in six words. Lasers and high-power microwaves work; making them light enough to hang on an airframe without eating its payload and range is the hard part. Dodd wants hardware on aircraft and high-altitude platforms — not another briefing.

A quiet stretch, and a big cancellation

The Air Force’s directed-energy work has gone quiet lately. Its trailer-sized THOR microwave system last publicly zapped a drone swarm back in 2023, with a follow-on called “Mjolnir” announced but not yet tested. And the service’s most ambitious airborne effort — a high-energy laser for the AC-130J Ghostrider gunship — was killed in 2024 after it missed its flight-test window.

Cleared to fire at home

One thing has changed in the weapons’ favor: they can finally be tested over U.S. soil. After a military counter-drone laser forced the FAA to shut down the airspace over El Paso in early 2026, the Pentagon and FAA worked out a safety deal that reopened the door.

Dodd’s challenge to industry was blunter still: “Bring us your best. Not slideware—hardware we can put on a range and stress.” After years of promise, the Pentagon wants beams it can actually fly.

Sources: Air & Space Forces Magazine; Mike Dodd via X (12 Aug 2026); remarks by David Bagnati at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium, Huntsville, Ala. Budget figures per USAF 2027 request.