The Danger Room had an interesting scoop yesterday on the Marine Corps' request for
an airborne tactical laser that could, in the words of the formal request, create "instantaneous burst-combustion of insurgent clothing, a rapid death through violent trauma, and more probably a morbid combination of both."
The ability to strike ground targets with an airborne laser has been a mild obsession of mine for sometime now. I first became interested in the subject when discussing Boeing's Airborne Laser with a source who claimed that the weapon, designed to strike in-flight missiles at high altitude, might also be able to target ground forces. If that were true--the applications for such a technology are limitless--from knocking down sea-skimming missiles, to taking out lone targets from a stand-off distance with no threat of collateral damage. Unfortunately, I'm not terribly optimistic that this type of system will be deployed any time soon (and neither is the Danger Room). I spoke with John Pike a while back about Air Borne Laser--he said he thought it had the potential to "solve the North Korea problem", but he was deeply suspicious that the program would have the capacity to strike ground targets: