Iron Beam Is a Military Triumph and a Geopolitical Godsend

Now Israel has finally rolled out everywhere in the country the Iron Beam laser-based system that promises to revolutionize the IDF’s ability to intercept incoming aerial threats, from missiles, rockets, drones, and mortars, hitting them at the speed of light, and for only a few dollars per intercept, as opposed to the $50,000-$100,000 that each interception by Iron Dome costs. Let me be the first on the block to congratulate the state of Israel and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems for having used — since the fall of 2024 — the incredibly effective and incredibly cheap Iron Beam laser anti-missile defense weapon.

But in addition, the development and possession and use of such a weapon by Israel has a geopolitical significance, for it enhance Israel’s standing on the world stage, and its desirability as a defense partner.

More on the military and geopolitical significance of Iron Beam can be found here.

The Defense Ministry announced on Sunday the delivery of the first Iron Beam (Or Eitan) system to the IDF, Israel’s revolutionary laser air-defense platform.

What is immediately clear is that Iron Beam could significantly alter the battlefield – at least in the short term – in Israel’s favor. What is less obvious, but potentially more consequential, is that it could also alter Israel’s geopolitical position, again to Israel’s advantage.

Iron Beam is not just a military development; it is a geopolitical one.

It has the potential to reshape Israel’s relations with allies, reorder parts of the global arms market, blunt efforts to isolate the country, and force Israel’s enemies to rethink not only the mechanics of attacking Israel – the how – but the economics of those attacks.

The Iron Beam is designed to defend against short-range threats such as rockets, mortars, and drones. Instead of firing expensive interceptor missiles, it uses a powerful, precisely aimed laser beam to heat a target until it is damaged or destroyed, often within seconds of launch and while it is still over enemy territory….

The incoming rockets, mortars, and drones are heated up by laser beams aimed at them within seconds of their launch, heated so high that they self-destruct before they reach Israeli airspace, and Israelis need no longer rush into shelters several times a day, that so disrupts their work day and their lives.

The laser beam is a burst of intense light, costing a few dollars at most. In contrast, Arrow 3, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome involve kinetic attacks, with physical interceptors costing tens of thousands of dollars apiece. Some Iron Dome interceptors cost $100,000. The deployment of the Iron Beam — a burst of laser light — promises to save the IDF billions of dollars. The widely-deployed Iron Beam relies on cheap laser bursts that can be repeated indefinitely, at a cost of a few dollars for each burst. And Iron Beam will be able to replace, depending on from how far away the incoming rockets, missiles, or drones are launched, the much more expensive interceptors used in other anti-missile systems Israel has in place.

The Israelis have seen former allies distance themselves from the Jewish state. Some have placed embargos on weapons previously supplied to Israel; these include the U.K. and even Germany. The U.S. remains a stable supplier of weapons for now, but the Israelis have to plan for a future without Trump, one in which the U.S. government might be taken over by “progressive” Democrats, or Tucker-Carlson Republicans, so that from either extreme an American government unfriendly to Israel, and prepared to put limits on the kinds, and amounts, of weapons it will supply Israel, is a distinct possibility. The Israelis are aware of this, and as a consequence are going to do whatever they can to become much less independent on American weapons than they are today.

This is where Iron Beam becomes awkward for Israel’s critics. Governments that speak harshly about Israeli policy – some of which flirted with and even imposed arms embargoes or symbolic sanctions – are also among the ones that will need to find solutions to drone threats to their own countries.

France, Norway, the U.K., and Spain recognized with alacrity a “state of Palestine” during the past year, despite the fact that no one knows what the borders of that state will be, or who will run its government, or if such a state were created, what would happen to the 520,000 Israeli Jews now living in Judea and Samaria.