From Dr. Doug Beason, The Cipher Brief: "Directed Energy (DE) Weapons – lasers and high power microwaves – have come of age. Over the past five decades, Directed Energy power capable of being used for weapons has increased by 10 orders of magnitude – over ten billion times – from milliwatt to megawatt. It's happening so fast; it's the equivalent of a "military Future Shock.""
In Defense of a Big Idea for Joint Warfighting
From J.P. Clark, War on the Rocks: “Since at least the end of World War II, an overarching trend within the U.S. military has been a long march toward a more integrated joint force. The creation of the Department of Defense and the Goldwater-Nichols Act are the highlights that garner most attention, but the present state of jointness also owes much to change achieved by more gradual degrees. Beginning with the desire to reap a post-Cold War “peace dividend,” the pull of budgets declining faster than operational demands led to an understandable desire to cut seemingly redundant capabilities. This gave rise to what defense leaders such as Gen. Martin Dempsey and Adm. Jonathan Greenert have touted as joint force interdependence — “a deliberate and selective reliance and trust of each Service on the capabilities of the others to maximize its own effectiveness.” The principle remains sound, but that is not to say that all earlier decisions made in its name are still valid. Deliberate and selective choices made in one operational environment might be unwise in a different context.”