TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Last week, avid online weapons spotters located what appeared to be a Chinese-made laser system at Dubai airport in the United Arab Emirates. The lasers are mounted on a vehicle and are supposed to be able to shoot down drones.
Already in the UAE is an Israeli-made laser system called Iron Beam that Israel apparently loaned the Emiratis, and further reports say the UAE is also trying to buy an American-made laser weapon. The UAE has also entered into agreements with European and U.S. companies to co-develop its own laser weaponry.
In late 2025, a transport company posted pictures of military equipment it was shipping and inadvertently outed Oman as another buyer of Chinese-made laser weapons. And, after an Israeli attack on its capital in September last year, Qatar is apparently looking into acquiring elements of the Turkish aerial defense system known as Steel Dome, which also includes laser weaponry.
Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia, the military has been testing Chinese-made laser weapons systems too with some observers suggesting the Saudis have bought as many as eight of China's Silent Hunter units and may be looking to buy U.S.-made laser weapons too.
Star Wars, anyone?
Laser weapons might sound like science fiction but the Iran war is bringing them closer to common use in real-life conflicts, says Jared Keller, a former defense reporter who runs Laser Wars, a newsletter that looks specifically at this technology. Recently he wrote that during April and May, global laser weapons development had accelerated at a pace he hadn't seen before.
And "the UAE is slowly becoming the world's busiest laser weapon market," he added, noting that the country now had two different types of laser systems and was purchasing a third.
"We are at a point where several forces are converging," to popularize lasers, Keller told DW. "One is technological maturity." Although the U.S. military first shot down a drone with laser in testing in 1973 and has pursued the technology ever since, laser weapons are now smaller and work better, Keller explained.
Lasers are part of a group known as Direct Energy Weapons or DEW. In this group are high-energy lasers which have a beam that is used to either damage or blind targets. The group also includes what are known as high-power microwave weapons, which produce bursts of microwaves that cause internal malfunctions in targets.
Secondly, Keller continues, it's about the proliferation of drones in combat. "The rise of unmanned drone warfare complicates the conventional economics of combat," Keller explains. That is, it's not cost-effective to shoot down a cheap drone that only costs hundreds of dollars, with missiles that cost hundreds of thousands or even millions, Keller explains.
"It's an unsustainable cost curve, especially when these drones can be mass produced quickly and weaponized just as quickly, while missiles take a long time and a lot of resources to produce," the U.S.-based laser weapons expert says. "As a result, governments around the world are trying to pursue lower-cost countermeasures."
For example, the manufacturers of high-energy laser weapons often say that each shot costs only between $3 and $5.
And finally, the Iran war has changed demand for lasers. Although they are being developed in Ukraine to combat Russian drone attacks and Russians apparently have some too, the Iran war is the first time the U.S. military, its allies in the Gulf and Israel have had to deal with drones in this way.
"The Iran war has really brought drone warfare home," Keller says, recounting that senior U.S. defense officials at a March conference said they wanted to start fielding laser weapons at scale and within the next three years.
"Any country facing an imminent threat from a regional neighbor is going to want to fast-track these systems," Keller says, explaining why lasers are proliferating in the Gulf states.
Do lasers really work against drones?
However lasers are not a "silver bullet," he says and for the Middle East countries buying them, Keller thinks such weapons will be most useful as part of a larger, layered air defense system.
That's because of some of the drawbacks that come with lasers. Laser beams go in a straight line, can only be used at a certain distance (for example, Israel's Iron Beam units only cover 10 kilometers at a time) and to be effective, need to be held on a target for a certain amount of time. What is known as "dwell time" can be difficult if the target is a fast-moving drone.
A laser's beam can also be diffused or disrupted by humidity, rain, smog, fog, snow, sand, dust or sea spray. High temperatures in the Middle East can also hurt a laser's sensitive components and make operating them difficult, as more energy has to go into cooling. The Saudis have reportedly complained about some of these issues when testing their Chinese-made lasers.
Despite previous hype about it, Israel's Iron Beam laser hasn't yet been used fully in the Iran war either. A version has shot down drones launched by Lebanese group Hezbollah but, according to reports in the Jerusalem Post, the Israeli air force says the laser needs at least 14 more batteries to be effective, something the country does not currently have.
That's why sending the Iron Beam 100-kilowatt laser to the UAE "may be more of a diplomatic maneuver than a practical, tactical one," Laser Wars' founder Keller notes.
There's obviously also a geopolitical aspect to who has laser weapons in the Middle East.
Buying laser weaponry from different sources, as the UAE and Saudi Arabia appear to be doing, is one way that the Gulf states are able to diversify their own defense, says Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King's College London.
"Overreliance on the United States has not been fruitful," Krieg told DW. "There is a realization that in the short-term that cannot be broken, but that in the mid- to long-term the Gulf states have to find ways to increase their self-sufficiency."
The threat presented by Iran and — as senior Saudi leaders argued this week — Israel, is not going away, even if the war ends.
"So it is clear that they need to complement diplomacy with a strong ability to deny Iran the opportunity to disrupt trade and stability," Krieg argued. "One way to do that is creating a leaner, more self-sufficient air defense umbrella that's less reliant on American munitions, which are difficult to procure."
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