LASER TECHNOLOGY'S LASSO. : WARS GLOBAL ESSAY

RECENT WARS and ongoing wars and anticipated near future wars have begun stirring hot new urgent interest in high tech technology directly relating to defenses.

DRONE swarms that have deluged Ukraine for years and crossed the border into Poland this month, and then a very recent Pakistan India hostile engagement have sent the world's militaries rushing to upgrade.

SOON, very soon they will have a new solution : lasers. Lasers can destroy drones more efficiently than costlier weapons systems.

Scientists have for decades sought to harness directed energy into weapon systems that would be cheaper and more efficient than missiles or rockets.

A growing number of companies are developing or deploying their own laser air defenses, and some have already been used in war, by Israel and Ukraine.

A NATO nation in Europe is now buying an air defense laser from an Australian company, which officials, experts and industry executives said appears to be the highest-power direct energy system to be sold on the global weapons market.

That is a sign that they are becoming more widely available and could be a mainstay for future warfare.

The Australian laser's maker, Electro Optic Systems, advertises it as able to shoot down 20 drones a minute, at a cost of less than 10 cents per shot.

Nicknamed '' Apollo'' for the Greek god of light, it has about the same level of power as Israel's highly anticipated Iron Beam air defense laser, which is being built for its own military.

'' The Ukrainian war and the Gaza war, and the India Pakistan engagement were key trigger events that everybody thought :

'' It's the time now to make this operational. We should not spend any more years in doing demonstrations, tests and prototyping, '' Andreas Schwer, Electro Optic Systems' chief executive, said in a recent interview.

'' We have some clients which are so much under actual threat that they say, ' Listen, we can't wait - we need something tomorrow,'' Mr. Schwer added.

He declined to say which NATO nation is buying the laser.

Air defenses have been in high demand for years, particularly to protect targets in the Middle East, East Asia and the United States.

The World Students Society thanks Lara Jakes.