As the United States moves toward possible military conflict with Iran, the White House and the Pentagon have been boasting about an exotic arsenal of directed-energy weapons that could signal a new era of lethality in warfare.

The administration’s public talk about the new weapons systems followed the success of U.S. forces on Jan. 3 in penetrating Venezuelan air defenses, neutralizing defenders there and snatching President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. After that decisive operation, officials began providing a glimpse of weapons that are rarely discussed. Perhaps they hope to intimidate prospective military opponents, such as Iran or China.

As the United States moves toward possible military conflict with Iran, the White House and the Pentagon have been boasting about an exotic arsenal of directed-energy weapons that could signal a new era of lethality in warfare.

The administration’s public talk about the new weapons systems followed the success of U.S. forces on Jan. 3 in penetrating Venezuelan air defenses, neutralizing defenders there and snatching President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. After that decisive operation, officials began providing a glimpse of weapons that are rarely discussed. Perhaps they hope to intimidate prospective military opponents, such as Iran or China.

These disclosures about U.S. directed-energy capabilities come as a Post report raised new concerns that Russia or another foreign adversary might have secretly used a pulsed-energy weapons over the past decade against CIA and State Department personnel, inflicting a constellation of symptoms known as “Havana syndrome.” Descriptions of the effects of U.S. and alleged foreign attacks are eerily similar.

President Donald Trump blurted out some hints of new systems during a Jan. 24 interview with the New York Post when he said U.S. forces used what he called “the Discombobulator” to storm Maduro’s compound. “I’m not allowed to talk about it. I would love to. … They never got their rockets off. They had Russian and Chinese rockets, and they never got one off. We came in, they pressed buttons, and nothing worked.”

Trump offered another clue in a Feb. 13 speech to soldiers at Fort Bragg, the home of some of the Army’s most elite warriors. “Everyone’s trying to figure out why [Venezuelan air defenses] didn’t work. Someday you’re going to find out,” Trump said, according to a report from a North Carolina news outlet The local reporter noted that the disabling weapon sounded like little-known Air Force systems that use high-powered microwaves to disrupt electronics.

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