Airpower analysts too agreed that the Russian air defenses would be a serious problem during the early stages of any air campaign. 

These energy levels are relatively low still, but Mark Gunzinger, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told the AFP that within a few years there'll be prototypes of more than 150 kilowatts. Within six to eight years, the US could be using laser systems of more than 300 kilowatts.

Mark Gunzinger, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, sees that relatively small output increasing rapidly.

“No other nation has that capability … to send bombers from our homeland to any place on the globe,” said Mark Gunzinger, a former Air Force colonel and B-52 pilot now working as a senior fellow at the Center for Budgetary and Strategic Assessments. “Using that force projection in Libya serves as a deterrent to rivals elsewhere.”

That emphasis on targeting the enemy’s stuff rather than enemy troops was the case on Wednesday. Lt. Gen. Marshall B. Webb, the head of Air Force Special Operations Command, laid out an operational scenario: pilots on a dangerous raid might use a laser mounted on an orbiting gunship to take out an enemy truck and a drone. Webb has said that he wants to test a laser aboard an AC-130J within a year. Webb, who was speaking at the Direct Energy Summit in downtown Washington, D.C., was asked about targeting humans. “My intent right now is to prove we can do a demo and do some specific things with this: control the beam; contain jitter,” he said.

This ability to learn through prototypes and experiments has always been resident in the MDA but is new for the Navy. The Navy recently created a Surface Navy Laser Weapon System program as its very first Rapid Prototyping, Experimentation and Demonstration (RPED) project, which allows the service to put new technologies in the field, learn lessons early to reduce risk, and decide whether and how to proceed before spending too much money, Rear Adm. Mike Manazir, deputy chief of naval operations for warfare systems (OPNAV N9), said at the summit, cohosted by Booz Allen Hamilton and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.