Supporting Spectrum Warfare A Balanced Approach to Meet the EW Demands of Potential Future Conventional and Irregular Warfare Threats OR Lessons Learned in the Last Decade of Electronic Warfare COL (Ret) Laurie Moe Buckhout President-Elect, AOC Slide 1
Conflict Why do we Fight? Seeing the problem through different lenses allows experts to predict the next conflict Religion Resources oil, food, land, deepwater ports and waterways Culture and ethnicity Desire for Global Stability Ideals democracy? Slide 2
Who Will We fight? We are confronting a dynamic and complex strategic environment that defies neat categorization. Non-state or sub-state actors may be using conventional weapons to achieve their goals, and rising state powers may be turning to non-conventional means. The relationships between allies, friends, partners, and adversaries are fluid. Friendly nations want to shape this environment to promote the nation s security, but also must be prepared to react to changing circumstances. Slide 3
Iran Iran has an array of ground based jammers and uses them Hizballah's Iranian systems neutralized Israeli EW Iranian EW-installed radar stations blocked the Barak anti-missile missiles aboard Israeli warships Hezbollah's use of Iranian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Iran Electronics Industries (IEI) makes electro-optics and lasers, communication equipment, telecommunication security equipment, electronic warfare equipment, new and refurbished radar tubes, and missile launchers Unstable and aggressive - and if there were to be a regime change, how would a new regime treat democratic, non-muslim nations? Slide 4
North Korea Very good EW arsenal, mostly GOTS with contestant technology infusions and the advantage of mass lots of it Information released last week that US fighter jet forced to land after subjected to GPS jamming from NK. Slide 5
China Jan 07 Anti Satellite Weapon UHF-band Satellite Comms Jammers Electronic countermeasures, and defenses against electronic attack (e.g., electronic and infrared decoys, angle reflectors, and false target generators), DRFM "Gaoxin Project" - Y-8 EW Aircraft series Manpack Direction-Finding (DF) system for the VHF Band Portable Signal Collection System for Locating and fingerprinting" Radars Looming regime changes and constant demonstrations of force Exports and sells technology Slide 6
To America s South Venezuela unstable regime unfriendly to US interests IEDs known Colombia drug cartels lead to instability Mexico poor economy, uncontrolled organized crime, remote-controlled IED - cellphone/cattleprod already found Slide 7
Middle East Arab nations all have EW capabilities In whose hands will they fall as reverberations of Arab spring continue to be felt? Instability of region will lead to splinter groups and arising of possible factions hostile to NATO/US ideals What will happen to Libya? Fighting over oil Slide 8
Russia Excellent post-cold War EW manning, training and equipping Modernized capabilities targeted against full range of military spectrum-using targets Dedicated EW Corps Used UAS-based jammers in recent Georgian conflict But have they learned how to fight an asymmetric fight since leaving Afghanistan? Slide 9
Libya Egypt Somalia Broad spectrum of possible conflict triggers and types Africa A broad blend of hitech and very lo-tech capabilities Slide 10
Afghanistan 2004 Emergence of IEDs / VBIEDs Composition: artillery, mortar shells or homemade explosive, complex explosives poured into concrete Triggers & Methods: mobile phones, washing machine timers, pagers, garage door openers, burglar alarms, key fobs, doorbells, or remote controls for toy cars Increase in remote detonation, command detonated, radio, cell phone, victim operated, infrared Man portable air defense systems (MANPADS) Continually unstable The US Army s EW Training Ground Slide 11
How Do We Pick the Right Kit to Fight Every Possible Conflict? In the changing character of global conflict, EW is the perfect sample of a highly flexible capability which must be able to address requirements across a broad spectrum of conflicts. But we, as an aggregate of spectrum warriors, have our OWN conflicts: Large platforms vice small tailored solutions? Long-term programmatic approaches vice COTS? Single-function vice multi-function capabilities? Leveraging current and emerging technologies? How Do We Choose? Slide 12
Supporting Spectrum Warfare US Lessons Learned in Counter-Insurgency and Asymmetric Warfare EW: The Painful Transformation from a Cold-War Force to One Better Prepared to Meet Adaptive Threats Slide 13
Conventional Warfare: predominant use of older government-procured hardware, tailored for use against a specific threat and a force-on-force combat Terrorists Revolutions Civil War Insurgencies Organized Crime Drug Wars Unconventional/Asymmetric Warfare: hostile actors weaponize current or even outdated technologies defeating us through smaller, agile activity and the ability to rapidly change Tactics, techniques and procedures Slide 14
COCOM AWACS Compass Call Persistent Surveillance JSF Airborne Laser EA 6B Control Protect Deny Deceive Disrupt Degrade Destroy ES/UAS EA / UAS 1990s we had spent trillions of dollars on sophisticated systems which are ASCC/EWCC ES/R&SV ELDEC/UAS Defensive Ops HPMV ES/UAS Offensive Ops AEA/EP single-function and not interoperable nor spectrum compatible. ES/UAS NLOS AEA/EP CREWS DDG Stability Ops ES/R&SV CREWS Manpad EP JFLCC/EWCC AHPM ASSOCIATION OF OLD CROWS R&SV PROPRIETARY INFORMATION Slide 15 JFACC/EWCC
Lesson #1: Targeting We had heavy and expensive SIGINT capabilities targeting against Cold War and near-peer nation threats, not current COTS technology. It all had to be operated by Intelligence personnel at Brigade and Division levels Enemy weaponized current technology, and changed his TTPs frequently Cell phones, radios, toy car controllers We could not find find and identify the enemy in the midst of friendly and host nation spectrum users We learned: you need to have light and manpackable targeting and SIGINT capabilities down to the lowest levels. You need a lot of them. You need to permit regular troops to operate these in order to gain rapid and relevant intelligence across your AO Slide 16
Lesson #2: Attack When we found the enemy, we only knew how to collect on him, not attack him - Intelligence had run our EW in toto, and they never attacked, so our EA capabilities were completely useless. Most had been mothballed The enemy took advantage of this fact and ran amok with RC-IEDs and with crude communications which we did not jam he operated amidst our forces with impunity because we did not know how to pull the trigger We learned: we needed to train and equip our forces with ground and airborne EA capabilities in order to deny the enemy the use of the spectrum and to stop his C2, to prevent RC-IEDs and to neutralize his Situational Awareness Slide 17
Lesson #3: Command and Control Because our EW had atrophied for so long, used primarily by aircraft for SEAD, ground commanders had no idea how to ask for it or how to use it. The use of non-kinetic EA was completely foreign to them. We had no expertise to advise our combat leaders. The enemy capitalized upon this fact, and continued to evade both our intelligence and our kinetic weapons attacks he hid in caves and valleys and took his C2 to SATCOM phones We learned: EW is part of the warfighter s art. They MUST understand and be trained on how to integrate it into all phases of ops, across the entire spectrum of conflict. EW trigger-pullers need to be killers, because they know how to prioritize collect vice attack. Slide 18
Lesson #4: Compatibility When we began to use primitive jammers to stop IEDs, we jammed our own tactical radios and aircraft. We lost Soldiers because they turned off their jammers in order to hear their radio. US Navy and Air Force jammer aircraft did the same they stopped IEDs but stopped friendly C2 as well We learned: EW capabilities must be developed in conjunction with the capabilities of other spectrum using systems. You MUST have someone in charge of ensuring all your systems Army, Joint and if possible, Coalition work together. This is very, very difficult but if you do not have Spectrum Compatibility, many will die needlessly. Slide 19
Lesson #5: Interoperability Our EW systems still don t complement each other. We have no common EW Battle Management System, nor to we have the ability to cross-task assets across an AO. This results in a proliferation of single-task boxes and a pile-up of them on vehicles and Soldiers. This also applied to our joint airborne EW assets we have to go through a day s-long Air Tasking Order process which severely inhibited the agility of our operations We learned: in order to reduce cost, size, weight and power, we must have a fully visible and interconnected network of EW capabilities, with constant situational awareness and the ability to task the best asset for the particular target from both local and central command and control locations. Slide 20
Lesson #6: Multifunctionality Every time the enemy tried a new technique, we built a new box to go after it. We ended up with dozens of stovepiped single-use systems which used the spectrum different types of jammers, collectors, communications and situational awareness capabilities all separate. These many systems used up all the space and power on our vehicles so we had to make choices to prioritize but they were all important We learned: an emitter is an emitter. We needed to leverage the newest technologies to build modular, tailorable solutions which would allow targeting, communications and electronic attack in one systems. The technology is here today the hard part is getting past institutional stovepipes signals, intel, fires Slide 21
Our Advice on Meeting Uncertain Threats Have Targeting assets and lots of them across the entire force to the lowest echelons Attack the enemy and deny him the spectrum destroy, degrade, deceive build and use EA Keep EW in the hands of the Warfighter comms and intel do not have the attack ethos ensure ALL Warfighters understand EW All spectrum-using systems need to be developed in conjunction and cognizance of all others and someone at a very high level needs to ensure this Modern EW systems are nearly worthless without an EWBM system and full collaborative capability Multifunctionality is the key to keeping an adaptive EW force capable of defeating any enemy. Spending money on a plethora of similar systems is no longer necessary smaller, modular, scalable, software-defined, flexible and tailorable these are the most important words in EW today Smaller, cheaper capabilities and more of them ie EA UAS Slide 22
Your future programmes are they interoperable, compatible, multifunctional, scalable, fully distributed across all echelons? Slide 23
Supporting Spectrum Warfare QUESTIONS? Slide 24