The Executive Yuan on Nov. 25 approved a special defense budget to acquire mostly indigenous weapons, such as missiles, to rapidly build up Taiwan’s combat capabilities. Together with a US military arms procurement budget proposed earlier this year, the nation is to invest nearly NT$334 billion (US$12 billion) by 2030 to deploy a “porcupine strategy” of asymmetric warfare, which includes strengthening the military’s countermeasures on land and sea by introducing US-made arms and developing indigenous naval vessels.
How to address a military threat of missiles, rockets, fighters and drones — whose lethality continues to advance — is a matter of deep concern, especially due to the expense and limited availability of precision firepower.
In addition to the immediate tasks of bolstering C4ISR — command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance — capabilities, and improving the accuracy of target identification and threat assessment to use ammunition more effectively, it is necessary to pursue more cost-effective military solutions.
In the Israeli-Palestinian crisis in May, the Israeli Iron Dome air-defense system performed excellently: Hamas launched about 4,300 rockets at Israel and the Iron Dome successfully intercepted 90 percent of them.
Although the Iron Dome is known to be the most cost-effective missile air-defense system of its kind, its construction cost US$50 million, each Iron Dome missile costs about US$49,000 and each interception mission costs US$100,000 to US$150,000. Using the Iron Dome to counter a large number of rockets or drones is a huge financial burden, and it would not be practical or adequate if faced with larger-scale attacks.
Many countries have sought to develop more economical alternatives — such as directed-energy weapons, including laser weapons — to increase their tactical options.
Laser weapons use light beyond the visible spectrum to project high-intensity energy to destroy or disable a target. It has the advantages of speed, rapid response and concealment.
What is particularly attractive about laser weapons is their high price-to-performance ratio and low supply requirements: The cost of each interception can be as inexpensive as a few US dollars and as long as the power supply is ensured, there is no need to worry about running out of ammunition.
However, the power of laser weapons can be compromised by atmospheric thermal blooming, which distorts and weakens the beam, a problem that worsens if there is fog, smoke, dust, rain, snow or smog. Because of the systems’ power and cooling requirements, it remains to be seen whether laser weapons can be deployed as practical military weapons.
Despite all of this, the US military seems to have made significant progress in the practical use of laser weapons. The US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey is equipped with a lower-power laser weapon system — called the Optical Dazzler Interdictor Navy counter-uncrewed aerial system — capable of striking drones and small surface vessels.
There are a variety of laser weapons under development in the US, while Russia, France, Germany, China and Israel have also invested their development.
Taiwan should enhance its porcupine strategy by introducing laser weapons to the military through international cooperation, such as the investment model used when Taiwan and the US collaborated on advanced F-16V jets, or development with Lithuania, a new friend of the nation known in Europe for its laser industry.
Steven Wu is a researcher and manager in the fields of biotechnology and medicine.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
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