Israel's Iron Beam laser defence system doesn’t make Israel’s air defence cheaper - it doubles them and makes the costs permanent! Right, so Israel has just locked itself into a problem it can’t engineer its way out of, and it’s called Iron Beam, they’re fancy new laser defence system being sold as a cheap as chips alternative to the likes of the Iron Dome and David’s Sling. The trouble is, somebody has done the actual sums and what’s being sold as a cheap answer to retaliation is actually a permanent cost, a permanent dependency, and a permanent admission that their whole air defence strategy isn’t working. Israel is the one affected here, its budget, its freedom of action, and its ability to pretend escalation comes without consequence, and that matters because this system only exists to keep that illusion alive. This isn’t just about a new laser being rolled out this year. It’s part of a pattern where technology is wheeled in to delay a reckoning, not solve the underlying problem. Iron Beam doesn’t replace anything, doesn’t simplify anything, and doesn’t make retaliation any cheaper, in fact the complete opposite is the truth. It stacks costs, hardens commitments, and trains adversaries how to push Israel back onto expensive missiles. Israel is now stuck with Iron Beam, a big fat white elephant around their necks all of their own making. Right, so Israel has rolled out Iron Beam as the answer to a problem it says is becoming unsustainable, the claim being that retaliation is cheap, interception is expensive, and lasers finally flip that equation, so a few dollars of electricity replaces tens of thousands in interceptor missiles and the state gets to keep doing what it’s been doing without the bill spiralling out of control. That’s the pitch. That’s what’s been sold. And that framing matters, because once you strip the language back to what is actually being promised, Iron Beam isn’t about civilian safety first and foremost, it’s about preserving freedom of action while pretending the costs have been solved.