Absolutely not. You are willfully mis-quoting Esper's statement. He was talking about how China and Russia have expanded the "battlefield domain" to include space. His remarks were given during the Association of the United States Army's annual meeting. The quote refers to the weaponization of space in the context of military advantage and systems exploitation. It doesn't suggest DEWs in space are being used to vaporize terrestrial targets. Anti-satellite weapons can include missiles launched from the ground or other satellites, cyber-attacks, jamming devices, or even lower-energy lasers intended to blind or disable satellites, not destroy ground targets.

Esper also said:

"Today, emerging technologies are expanding the geometry of the battlefield and transforming how we think about, prepare and plan for war."

Sure, the idea of Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs) has existed for quite some time. As a kid I remember fawning over the Pentagon paintings of space-based lasers shooting down planes or disabling enemy satellites. However, the application and the physics behind them often get misrepresented or misunderstood in popular culture and conspiracy theories. We talk like they're completed weapons systems, but cannot even describe their component technologies:

• Physics & Energy Needs: DEWs, like lasers, require a vast amount of energy to operate. A satellite capable of "vaporizing" a car or building would need a colossal amount of power, far more than what current satellite power sources (typically solar panels and batteries) can provide. What's the energy budget to vapourize a building? What powers these satellite weapons? No one can answer.

• Dissipation & Atmospheric Interference: Energy, especially in the form of lasers, dissipates as it travels. The atmosphere scatters and absorbs this energy, significantly reducing the power of a beam by the time it reaches the ground. In simple terms, shooting a high-energy beam from space to Earth's surface would lose a lot of its energy on the way down due to the atmosphere.

• Heat Dissipation: Generating a powerful laser creates a lot of heat. Satellites have limited means to dissipate this heat, and excessive heat could damage or destroy the satellite itself.

• Precision & Targeting: Keeping a laser beam steady and focused from space, while both the satellite and Earth are moving, presents tremendous targeting challenges. Any slight error could misdirect the beam, making it inefficient.

• Real-World Evidence: There has been no verified incident where a satellite with a DEW has vaporized a target on the Earth's surface during, say, a military test.