James Carafano on Directed Energy Defenses
The Heritage Foundation‘s James Carafano hits another one out of the park. He wrote a piece for Fox News about President-elect Barack Obama’s stand on missile defense: tough talk and no action.
This week Carafano writes about the Israel/Hamas conflict in a web memo on Heritage.org: “Conflict in Gaza: Another Case for Directed Energy Defenses.”
Israel initiated an offensive against Hamas to protect its citizens and destroy the group’s launching sites and stores of weapons. The fighting between Israel and the Islamic Hamas has been going on for about 10 days. What’s missing is a way for Israel to shoot down rockets and mortars, which likely would bring an end to the fighting and loss of life.
“Directed-energy weapons (such as lasers) provide a proven capacity to interdict rockets, artillery, and mortars,” Carafano writes. “Together the United States and Israel have the technologies necessary to field these weapons. Fielding defenses now would lessen the potential for future armed conflicts. The Pentagon should aggressively press forward in deploying prototype systems that can protect populations and devalue and deter threats such as those posed by Hamas.”
Carafano points out that Hamas has been building its military infrastructure and violating a truce between the two countries negotiated last summer. Consequently, Israel’s actions are fully justified. Developing a strong and reliable laser defense system would give the country more protection against Hamas and other rogue groups and nations.
“The new Administration has opportunity to introduce a ‘game changer’ in the current Middle East conflict by helping speed the fielding of prototype defenses that can devalue the threat of terrorist missile and artillery arsenals,” Carafano writes. “Building these new weapons may be one of the most powerful contributions to peace in the Middle East that the United States could make in the near future.”
Tags: Directed Energy Defenses, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, James Carafano, lasers