Lasers Over the Capital: The Pentagon Wants to Shoot Down Drones in D.C.

EARTH, Laniakea Supercluster—The drone problem used to be abstract. A policy brief, a budget line, a think-tank panel. Then unidentified objects started circling the homes of the Defense Secretary and the Secretary of State amid war with Iran, and suddenly the Pentagon needed a laser in Washington.

The New York Times reported on March 31 that the Army is considering deploying its LOCUST anti-drone laser near Fort McNair, the D.C. military base where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio reside, after unexplained drone activity was spotted in the surrounding airspace. The installation sits roughly two miles from Reagan National Airport in one of the most tightly controlled corridors of sky on the planet.

The timing is not incidental. Operation Epic Fury, the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran, is five weeks old and escalating. On Monday, President Trump held a press conference celebrating the rescue of a downed F-15 crew member from behind enemy lines in Iran, while reaffirming his Tuesday 8 p.m. deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face strikes on power plants and bridges. Iran rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal the same day. Since the war began, cheap Iranian Shahed drones costing as little as $20,000 each have battered U.S. bases and allied infrastructure across the Gulf, forcing the military to burn through multimillion-dollar Patriot interceptors to stop them.

The drone anxiety now extends to the White House itself. Last week aboard Air Force One, Trump revealed that the controversial $400 million ballroom replacing the demolished East Wing is partly cover for a military complex being built underground. He described the structure as featuring bulletproof glass and "drone-proof roofs, ceilings," adding that the military "wanted it more than anybody."

But drones are not only a wartime problem. In February 2025, Gen. Gregory Guillot, head of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the military detected 350 drone incursions across more than 100 U.S. installations in 2024. By March 2026, he told the same committee that incursions had increased further and that about a quarter of detected drones were now being neutralized—up from nearly zero. Hours after Epic Fury launched, a Northern Command rapid-deployment kit eliminated a drone threat over an undisclosed strategic base.

The problem spans two continents. In late 2024, coordinated drone swarms hit U.S. Air Force bases across England (RAF Lakenheath, Mildenhall, Feltwell, and Fairford), prompting the deployment of British combat troops and a criminal investigation. Rogue drone sightings near UK military sites doubled from 126 in 2024 to 266 in 2025, and the government announced plans to give troops the power to shoot them down. Germany's Ramstein Air Base saw similar activity.

The LOCUST system at the center of the Fort McNair discussion is made by AeroVironment. Its latest variant, the X3, fires a 20-to-35-kilowatt laser at roughly five dollars per shot, compared to around four million dollars per Patriot missile. It already caused a national incident in February when a firing near El Paso targeted what turned out to be a party balloon. The embarrassing mistake led the FAA to shut down the city's airspace entirely, as reported by the Times.

It's unclear whether the laser will be deployed. As of this week, officials have not confirmed a timeline for Fort McNair, and the decision depends on a broader Pentagon-FAA agreement over laser use along the border that remains unsigned.