Pantagon Slow Walking Directed Energy Weapons

Not just lasers, but also things like electronics frying high power microwaves, etc.

This appears to be driven by cost and obsolescence issues(paid subscription required):

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“Cross-domain synergies [result] when a [cyber or electronic] nonkinetic and [an explosive] kinetic weapon of any kind can be used in concert,” says Maj. Gen. William Lord, chief of Cyber Command (Provisional). “This can potentially be a weapon of mass disruption [that unlike a bomb, you can] ratchet back. It’s about changing enemy behavior [without] total destruction. What cyber- [and electronic attack] weapons bring is something between a letter and a 2,000-lb. bomb.”

“We’re trying to bring [cyber- and electronic weapons] all together as a total investment for the benefit of the warfighter,” says Jay Kistler, technology adviser for the Pentagon’s Office of Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L). “We’re working with all the players who are trying to get their arms around what we mean by cyber-operations and how we control them. And there is the recognition that electronic warfare overlaps cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.”

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“It can’t take 10-15 years to develop [a cyber- or electronic weapon],” says Lord. “We need things that get created and then [thrown] away in months, weeks or days. There also is a group looking at how to do more rapid acquisition.

So in addition to the inevitable draw down on Pentagon budgets (more on that later), the fact that they are dealing with civilian, and civilian derived, devices that have a total life cycle of less than 5 years from beginning of development to withdrawal from the market, mean that they don't know how to make all their whiz bang work.

Of course the fact that they are using the term, "synergies," strongly implies that the people in this field are bullsh#% artists too.