Because laser weapons represent the development direction of future weapons, its airborne, shipborne, vehicle-mounted and land-based tactical laser pointer weapons are the winning weapons for winning battlefields and battles, while the space-based high-energy laser weapons are to seize the superiority of space and the "space power". Therefore, the major military powers in the world will not hesitate to spend huge sums of money on research and development.
However, due to the complex technology of laser weapons, huge investment, and slow development progress, laser weapons have embarked on a bumpy road to research and development. For a long period of time, the "thermal blooming" effect brought by lasers could not be solved, thus restricting the development of laser weapons. Although the development has not been terminated, the progress has been intermittent. It was not until the 1990s that the energy produced by solid-state laser technology gradually reached the kilowatt level required for "hard kill" weapons, which revived the interest of military powers in developing laser weapons.
He did not hesitate to invest huge sums of money in research and development, especially in the development of airborne laser weapons. The ABL airborne weapons research and development project, which has spent more than 5 billion US dollars in 16 years, has achieved many successful tests of intercepting ballistic missiles. The project was terminated at the end of 2011 due to high cost, complex technology, low practical applicability, and repeated delays in the development schedule.
Not only that, the MTHEL laser cannon jointly developed with Israel has not been out of the scope of experimental research, and the Pentagon also withdrew the funding for the project. Nevertheless, the development of green laser pointer weapons did not stop because of this, but instead shifted funds to research on other laser projects.
Because of its high energy, monochromaticity, coherence and good directionality, lasers were quickly included in the new weapon development plan by the military powers of the century, and became one of the new weapons being developed. The United States, Britain and other countries first applied laser technology to various weapon systems, and proved the value of laser weapons in many wars such as the Vietnam War, the Falkland Islands, and the Gulf. Therefore, all regard laser weapons as a key project of future weapon research and development.