Secondary effects are the domain of partical beams. "flash" shock on the skin of an ICBM (for eg) esp. in boost phase are an efficient way of minimising power requirements and thus reducing thermal etc. stress on optical systems attendent. Personally, I think that double burst is the way forward (one to at least punch a partial tunnel before the main beam.
Oh, and even with electron tunnelling partical weapons are only, realistically, going to have ABM functions in exo-atmospheric theatres. But they are too hungry for orbital deployment. Unless they use neutral anti matter beams. Not so likely. Unless the BMDO is getting a lot more funding. I mean a LOT.
