WASHINGTON: The US military is “not prepared” to conduct radio and radar jamming against high-end adversaries, a veteran electronic warfare officer now in Congress says. We have made major progress jamming terrorist communications in Afghanistan and Iraq, says Rep. Don Bacon, a retired one-star general who recently visited both countries. But even against such low-tech foes,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: After two decades of decline, American electronic warfare is recovering, but not fast enough, says general-turned-congressman Rep. Don Bacon. What the military needs to do, Bacon said is to elevate the electromagnetic spectrum to an official domain of warfare — alongside land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace — and appoint general officers as EW…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Don’t worry about Russia building a killer robot someday. Worry about the radio-jamming drones they have today. Despite a few grandiose claims and snazzy videos of robots shooting guns, Russia remains behind “the Chinese, Iranians, and the Turks” in developing armed unmanned systems, let alone the United States, CNA expert Samuel Bendett said this…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.PENTAGON: The brand new Army Rapid Capabilities Office is studying proposals to spend between $50 and $100 million on urgently needed electronic warfare gear, Breaking Defense has learned. The options include sensors to detect radar and radio signals, and jammers to block them, mounted on ground vehicles, soldiers’ backpacks, and drones. Where will the money come…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Robophobes, relax. The robot revolution is not imminent. Machine brains have a lot to learn about the messy physical world, said DARPA director Arati Prabhakar. Instead, DARPA sees some of the most promising applications for artificial intelligence in the intangible realm of radio waves. That includes electronic warfare — jamming and spoofing — as…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: After two decades of largely ignoring the danger, the Army is seriously training for a scary scenario: What if GPS, our satellite communications and our wireless networks go down? It’s hardly a hypothetical threat. Russian electronic warfare units locate Ukrainian troops by their transmissions and jam their radios so they can’t call for help, setting them…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: The problem with secret weapons is that almost nobody knows about them — including people on your own side who might really need to use them. That’s the self-inflicted wound the Pentagon is struggling with as it tries to apply highly classified capabilities in cyber and electronic warfare to the notoriously tough challenge of…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Our regular readers already know the bad news about electronic warfare. Russia and China are rapidly catching up to the US in jamming, spoofing, and electronic eavesdropping. Senior Pentagon officials say the technological gap between them and us is shrinking, especially on those technologies that have made the biggest difference: GPS, drones, smart weapons,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: US missile defenses can hit a bullet with a bullet, shooting supersonic weapons right out of the sky — when they can see them. But as the Russians are showing in their invasion of Ukraine, radar can be jammed. That’s why the US Army conducted an unprecedented wargame this spring to test its new…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.PENTAGON: The US Army is struggling to fund the increasingly crucial capabilities it fields for electronic warfare, which it largely abandoned after the Soviet Union fell. The Army has over 32,000 short-range defensive jammers to stop roadside bombs, but on current plans, it won’t have an offensive jammer until 2023. “Can that be accelerated? Yes,” said…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.NAVY YARD: American warships are about to get much harder to kill. Armed with new electronic warfare systems, the US Navy “is taking back the spectrum,” Capt. Doug Small says. The great advantage of American warships has long been their ability to absorb punishment and to keep fighting. In the modern era, however, the best defense is electronic:…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.