Published: 1 March 2009
Air & Space Power Journal - Spring 2009

The E-Bomb: How America’s New Directed Energy Weapons Will Change the Way Future Wars Will Be Fought by Doug Beason. Da Capo Press (http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/dacapo/home.jsp), Eleven Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, 2005, 258 pages, $26.00 (hardcover), $15.95 (softcover) (2006).

Author J. Douglas Beason, a retired Air Force colonel, has assembled a technical but readable text on directed-energy weapons and their impact on modern warfare. Lasers, high-power microwaves, and particle beams play a significant part in the development of current and future weapons. Only time will tell if these revolutionary weapons will have the huge effect that some people predict. The text explains directed energy, its development, and the ways that service laboratories such as the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, turned academic research into practical applications.

Dr. Beason, who served as a guinea pig during an active experiment involving a laser used in a non­lethal way to control hostile crowds, also discusses the US Air Force’s airborne-laser program from inception to its current research-and-development status. This includes information about the NKC-135 aircraft and its CO2 laser as well as tactical applications under development by the US Army. The most interesting chapter describes an attempt to use relay mirrors placed around the globe to achieve laser domination by allowing laser beams to travel worldwide.

Students of future weapons will enjoy the final sections of The E-Bomb, which examine such developments as fiber-optic lasers and terahertz usage of the spectrum. Although serious students would do better by reading engineering and physics texts on this subject, this useful, easy book fills a niche as a general overview.

Capt Gilles Van Nederveen, USAF, Retired
Centreville, Virginia

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.