US Secretary of War Secretary Pete Hegseth attended a demonstration of US combat lasers, which succeeded in shooting down drones in flight. The fact that Hegseth was at his allegedly first encounter with this laser technology has led to a flurry of coverage, claiming that the US is on its way to developing Trump’s much-trumpeted Golden Dome protection system.
The novelty of this demonstration should not be overstated. Many countries, including the People’s Republic of China, have developed laser technology for deployments on their ships to shoot down drones and other kinetic vehicles. This is a far cry from the proclaimed national defense system proclaimed by the President. But even at this stage the whole idea has caused a political furor, with Russia and China in May signing another statement opposing such weapons deployment in space, a deployment which would be required according to Trump’s guidelines.
President Trump is keen to maintain that his idea is somehow “in the shadow of” President Reagan’s SDI. He couldn’t be more wrong. When Reagan discovered the option of deploying lasers and other advanced technologies capable of destroying missiles in flight, he knew that if the US unilaterally developed such a program, it would be considered a casus belli by the US’s chief rival at the time, the Soviet Union. Yet, aware of the fact that the Soviet Union was also working on such a defense, his SDI proposal, which had been crafted and suggested to him by Lyndon LaRouche, was for the two superpowers to work cooperatively, or at least co-equally, on such a system, so that both powers would be protected by these technologies. Since such a joint system would also protect against any third power using nuclear missiles, the SDI would make nuclear weapons obsolete and take the world out of the era in which Mutually Assured Destruction hung like a Damocles sword over mankind.
Trump, with his Make America Great Again slogan (Make America First would be a more accurate name for it), aims to protect only the United States, which will maintain and even increase its nuclear arsenal. This vision can only be seen as a casus belli, not only by Russia but also by China. Attempts to go back to a time before the introduction of new physical principles in strategy, for example through simple arms limitations treaties, are unlikely to succeed today, given that the genie is out of the bottle. Something like the SDI designed by LaRouche will have to be revived if we are ever to achieve a peaceful world.
