Lasers on the Fence Line: Pentagon Deploys Directed-Energy Counter-Drone Systems at Five U.S. Bases

The Pentagon has taken one of its most concrete steps yet in the race to harden American military installations against the growing threat of unauthorized and adversarial drones, selecting five bases across the country to receive high-energy laser and high-powered microwave counter-drone systems before the end of 2026. The announcement, made on May 6 by the Army-led Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401), marks a pivotal shift in how the U.S. military is approaching domestic base defense — moving away from reactive, fly-in response kits and toward permanent, integrated, directed-energy shields protecting some of the nation's most strategically sensitive real estate.

The five installations selected are Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Huachuca, Arizona; Naval Base Kitsap, Washington; Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota; and Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. Each was chosen to test directed-energy counter-drone capabilities across a diverse range of military missions and operating environments, from southern border security to nuclear deterrence infrastructure. Base commanders and the Department will finalize operational details over the next 180 days, with systems expected to be online by year's end.

The Threat That Made This Necessary

To understand the urgency behind this program, consider what has been happening over American military bases in recent years — and how rapidly the problem has escalated.

Between September 2023 and September 2024, there were 230 drone incursions reported over military installations. Over roughly the same period the following year, that number jumped by 82 percent to approximately 420 sightings — and those are only the incidents that were detected and reported. A January 2026 Pentagon Inspector General report warned that inconsistent counter-drone policies were leaving some U.S. installations vulnerable to unauthorized UAV activity, with gaps in both detection coverage and legal authorities hampering an effective response.

The southern border has become a particular flashpoint. In 2025, U.S. forces tracked 34,000 drones along the southern border — a significant increase over the previous year — with cartel-operated UAVs conducting surveillance of law enforcement positions, probing base perimeters, and in some cases deploying explosive payloads. By early 2026, JIATF-401 had deployed 13 advanced sensors and seven mitigation systems across key border sectors, spending more than $20 million on counter-drone capabilities in the region alone. Fort Bliss, one of the five selected bases, sits adjacent to a National Defense Area that extends to the southwest border for the purpose of denying illegal activity in the region, making it already something of a live counter-UAS laboratory.

Unauthorized drone incursions over sensitive military facilities have not been limited to the border. Barksdale Air Force Base — home to nuclear-capable B-52 bombers — experienced several unauthorized drone incursions that forced operational disruptions. A drone jamming protocol was engaged at a strategic U.S. base after multiple incursions were recorded within a short window, though the command declined to confirm whether those platforms were ever recovered or their source identified.

The late 2024 "New Jersey swarm" events — mass drone sightings across the tristate area that the government struggled to explain or counter — served as another wake-up call, illustrating that the drone threat to domestic infrastructure was not hypothetical. Senator Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, described the threat to military sites and large civilian gatherings as "severe and growing," warning that the country's legal and technological response had not kept pace with the proliferation of cheap, capable unmanned systems.

As Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, put it bluntly: increased investment in counter-drone capabilities "is dramatically overdue. But it's not as if the drone threat snuck up on us. We have seen this coming for a very long time."

Building the Architecture for a Response

The organization at the center of this effort, Joint Interagency Task Force 401, was stood up in August 2025 and formally codified in the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. Based at the Pentagon and run by the Army, the task force was designed to consolidate what had previously been a fragmented, service-by-service response to the drone threat into a unified, interagency architecture. It works in close coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Aviation Administration, and federal law enforcement agencies — a structure that reflects the fundamental challenge of domestic counter-drone operations: the threat does not respect the line between military and civilian airspace.

That coordination has already been tested. In February 2026, a laser system deployed to the area around Fort Bliss was fired twice in the course of counter-drone operations, prompting the FAA to close the airspace near El Paso on both occasions due to safety concerns for commercial air traffic. In one instance, Department of Homeland Security personnel were operating the Army's laser system — an early sign of both the interagency nature of the mission and the friction points that come with it.

In March 2026, the FAA and Pentagon reached a formal agreement governing domestic counter-drone defenses, including mandatory advanced notification requirements before high-energy laser systems are activated. That agreement cleared the way for the current pilot program, and the subsequent White Sands Missile Range demonstrations gave both agencies the confidence to proceed. Testing of the Army Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser (AMP-HEL) system at White Sands demonstrated accurate targeting of both stationary and airborne drones, automated safety shutoffs, and no adverse effects on civilian aircraft — critical assurances for a system intended to operate within the domestic airspace framework.

"Our collaboration with the FAA and the successful demonstration at White Sands were pivotal steps forward in our counter-UAS efforts," said Col. Scott McLellan, deputy director of JIATF-401. "We showed that directed-energy systems can counter drone threats while preserving the safety of air travelers. This pilot program now allows us to translate that progress into evolving operational capability for the homeland."

What Directed Energy Actually Means

The term "directed-energy weapon" covers a range of technologies, but the two types central to this pilot program — high-energy lasers and high-powered microwave systems — work through fundamentally different physical mechanisms and solve different tactical problems.

High-energy lasers defeat drones by concentrating a focused beam of light onto a target, rapidly heating its structure, electronics, or power system to the point of failure. The engagement is effectively silent, produces no projectile hazard, and costs nearly nothing per shot compared to interceptor missiles. AeroVironment's LOCUST (Laser Optical Counter-UAS System for Tactical Use) system, one of the leading candidates for deployment under the AMP-HEL program, operates in the 20 to 35+ kilowatt range and is designed to defeat Group 1 to Group 3 unmanned threats — the small commercial and military-grade drones that represent the vast majority of the incursion threat. LOCUST has already been fielded on Infantry Squad Vehicles and Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTVs), with four systems delivered to the Army's Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office by late 2025, and its LOCUST X3 successor unveiled at the AUSA Global Force conference in March 2026. The systems have seen real-world combat deployment outside the United States, with AeroVironment confirming that LOCUST-equipped systems have actively engaged UAS threats in active combat environments.

High-powered microwave systems take a different approach, emitting a broad electromagnetic pulse that can fry the electronics of multiple drones simultaneously across a wide area. Where lasers excel at precise, sequential engagement of individual targets, microwave systems offer the ability to defeat drone swarms — multiple platforms attacking simultaneously — without requiring the sequential targeting that limits laser effectiveness. The two technologies are complementary rather than redundant, and the decision to deploy both under a "layered C-UAS architecture" reflects that the Pentagon sees no single technology as sufficient.

The Army's Enduring High Energy Laser (E-HEL) program, a follow-on to AMP-HEL, is expected to make a procurement decision in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026, with an initial need for 24 systems. The five-base pilot program will feed directly into that acquisition decision, generating the operational data needed to justify a broader rollout.

Why These Five Bases?

The selection of the five pilot installations is not arbitrary. Each base represents a distinct mission environment, and together they are designed to generate the widest possible spectrum of operational data.

Fort Bliss, Texas is the second-largest Army installation by land area and home to the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command — making it both a logical testbed for air defense technology and a facility with an immediate, real-world counter-drone mission given its proximity to the southern border. Fort Bliss has already been operating counter-drone capabilities in connection with the National Defense Area and border security mission, meaning directed-energy systems there will be tested in a genuinely operational, not merely experimental, context.

Fort Huachuca, Arizona hosts the Army Intelligence Center of Excellence and multiple intelligence and communications units. From an adversarial perspective, a surveillance drone over Fort Huachuca is not a nuisance — it is a potential intelligence collection platform operating over one of the Army's most sensitive intelligence training environments. The base's intelligence and border-security mission makes identifying and characterizing unknown drones as important as shooting them down.

Naval Base Kitsap, Washington is home port for several of the Navy's submarines and aircraft carriers, including vessels that carry or support nuclear deterrence missions. A drone over Kitsap is not just an airspace violation; it is a potential surveillance platform over assets central to the U.S. nuclear triad. The maritime and strategic naval environment also tests directed-energy systems in a setting with different electromagnetic compatibility challenges than landlocked Army and Air Force installations.

Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota is home to the 319th Reconnaissance Wing, which operates the RQ-4B Global Hawk high-altitude ISR drone — giving the base a particular irony as both an operator and a potential target of unmanned systems. Its northern-tier location also provides data on how directed-energy systems perform in arctic and sub-arctic conditions, where atmospheric effects on laser propagation differ significantly from desert or coastal environments.

Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri is perhaps the most symbolically significant selection. Whiteman is the only base in the world that hosts the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber fleet — the aircraft described as America's crown jewel of strategic airpower, and one that played a direct role in the 2025 Midnight Hammer strikes on Iran. A surveillance drone over Whiteman could theoretically map sortie patterns, maintenance schedules, runway approach paths, or security response times for the Air Force's most sensitive bomber. Protecting Whiteman from drone-based reconnaissance is, in strategic terms, protecting the credibility of the U.S. nuclear deterrent itself.

As one analysis noted, the site selection "appears designed to test different mission sets rather than simply spread equipment across the country," generating data on fixed-site defense, border employment, airfield safety, electromagnetic compatibility, and the protection of high-value strategic assets.

Why Directed Energy Makes Economic Sense

One of the most important arguments for directed-energy counter-drone systems is not tactical but economic. The asymmetry between the cost of an attacking drone and the cost of a missile interceptor has been one of the defining strategic vulnerabilities exposed by the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. A Shahed-136 loitering munition costs Iran somewhere between $20,000 and $50,000. A Patriot interceptor missile costs the United States approximately $4 million. Shooting down cheap drones with expensive missiles is a losing financial proposition, and adversaries know it.

Directed-energy weapons break that calculus. Once the capital cost of a laser system is sunk, the cost per engagement is measured in electricity — effectively pennies per shot. The LOCUST X3 was specifically marketed at the AUSA Global Force conference as delivering "speed-of-light interception that reduces reliance on traditional missile-based air defense," with per-engagement costs that make even the most sustained drone campaign economically viable to defeat.

The December 2024 counter-unmanned systems strategy released by the Defense Department explicitly called for measures to "reduce the cost imbalance between drones and countermeasures." The directed-energy pilot program is the most direct answer to that directive yet fielded on American soil.

Challenges Ahead

The pilot program has no shortage of honest caveats attached to it. JIATF-401 director Army Brig. Gen. Matt Ross was clear in his public statement that "there is no 'silver bullet' to address this challenge" — a rare moment of official understatement that carries real technical weight.

Laser systems can engage only one target at a time, making them vulnerable to coordinated swarm attacks in which dozens of drones overwhelm a single emitter's sequential targeting capability. Atmospheric conditions — fog, rain, dust, and even certain humidity levels — can degrade laser performance. Laser systems require stable power generation and effective cooling, which can constrain deployment in austere or mobile environments. And the integration of directed-energy weapons into domestic airspace, where commercial aviation operates continuously overhead, demands levels of coordination with the FAA that have already proven friction-prone.

The five-base pilot is explicitly designed to surface exactly these kinds of operational limitations before a broader rollout is committed to. Pentagon officials stated that the program will support "development and evaluation" of the systems under real operational conditions — language that acknowledges these are not fully mature, off-the-shelf solutions being installed but rather systems that will continue to develop in the field.

There are also questions of legal authority. Under the Posse Comitatus Act and existing airspace law, military commanders' authority to engage drones over domestic installations has historically been constrained in ways that create dangerous gaps. Updated guidance issued in late 2025 expanded installation commanders' authority to take action against drones deemed a surveillance or kinetic threat beyond the fence line, but the legal framework continues to evolve alongside the technology.

A Shift in Doctrine

Taken together, the five-base directed-energy pilot program represents something larger than a technology procurement decision. It signals a doctrinal shift in how the United States conceives of installation defense in the drone age.

For most of the post-Cold War era, the primary threats to U.S. bases on American soil were terrorism and physical intrusion — threats addressed through fences, guards, and access controls. The proliferation of cheap, capable drones has added a persistent aerial surveillance and attack vector that none of those measures can address. The Pentagon's response — permanent, directed-energy systems integrated into each base's existing air defense architecture — treats the drone threat as a standing feature of the security environment, not an intermittent nuisance to be handled by fly-in response teams.

If the pilot program succeeds, the model it establishes at these five installations will almost certainly be extended across the broader inventory of strategically significant U.S. bases. The Army's E-HEL program's initial need for 24 systems suggests that scaling is already on the procurement roadmap. And the interagency coordination infrastructure being built through JIATF-401 — bringing together the Pentagon, DHS, FAA, and federal law enforcement under a single operational framework — provides the organizational foundation for a national counter-drone architecture that extends beyond the military fence line entirely.

"Directed energy is no longer a future concept — it is a proven force-protection capability," AeroVironment Vice President of Directed Energy John Garrity stated in December 2025. Based on what is now being deployed to the most sensitive installations in the American military, the Pentagon appears to agree.

Key Facts at a Glance

• Announcement date: May 6, 2026 (JIATF-401 / DoD release)
• Program authority: Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act
• Lead organization: Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (Army-led, est. August 2025)
• Technology types: High-energy lasers and high-powered microwave systems
• Deployment timeline: All five installations to receive systems before end of 2026 (within 180 days)
• Selected bases: Fort Bliss, TX; Fort Huachuca, AZ; Naval Base Kitsap, WA; Grand Forks AFB, ND; Whiteman AFB, MO
• Drone incursion trend: ~230 reported military base incursions (Sept 2023–Sept 2024); ~420 the following year (+82%)
• Southern border drone detections: 34,000 tracked in 2025 alone
• Key systems in contention: AeroVironment LOCUST / AMP-HEL; high-powered microwave platforms
• Upcoming procurement milestone: Army E-HEL program decision expected Q4 FY2026; initial need: 24 systems

ArmedForcesNews.com covers U.S. and global military developments. All figures cited are sourced from official U.S. government releases and open-source defense reporting.