Wouldn't it be dangerous for our own planes if terrorists on the ground had this kind of weapon?
Laser weapons for attacking ground targets are fine, but what we really need is a laser weapon that can knock out mortar rounds before they hit the ground.
To take advantage of a weapon like this, you need to have valuable ground targets to hit. It seems to me that terrorists offer few good ground targets, unless you are in the mood to take out every mosque in Iraq. But then, you could use cruise missiles for that.
Anyway, progress is good, go get 'em scientists!
They will get them just like they now have access to GPS, heavy encryption, and communications that were unavailable 20 years ago. We just need to develop it first, identify countermeasures and hope it takes a long time for potential adversaries to get usable weapons.
I agree with you on the mortar/rpg shield. That's worth throwing a lot of money at!