The headlines lately have verged on science fiction. A few weeks ago, my colleague Simon Shuster reported that the Ukrainian military had unveiled a new anti-drone laser weapon called the Sunray. On the very same day, American aviation officials abruptly shut down the airspace above El Paso, Texas, after Border Patrol agents in the area fired a laser of their own. Then, on Thursday, the U.S. military used a laser to take out a drone further down the Texas-Mexico border. Much can be said about all of this: about the implications for the Ukrainian war effort, about the potential consequences for U.S. border policy, about the internecine conflict between the FAA and the Pentagon, and what that indicates about the distribution of power within the Trump administration. But focus too much on matters of geopolitics, and you can lose sight of something arguably even more profound: Laser guns are real now. Actual militaries are deploying actual lasers in actual combat. 'This is a technology...
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