Imagine what they have now attached to drones to create fires in the name of climate change!

This was developed way back in the 1990s, it is nothing new. It's maximum range is possible only at high altitude as atmospheric turbulence destroys the coherence of the beam, rendering it little better than a bright search light. At low level the effective range is unlikely to be better than 5km, so attacking ground targets would probably need a near vertical beam. This limitation renders it of limited value militarily, as the aircraft would be a sitting duck for surface to air missile systems. It was originally conceived as an anti-ballistic missile system.