02 Dec 15. Analysts, Lawmakers Urge DoD To Rethink Electronic Warfare. In a world where long-range guided missiles and sophisticated radars are the norm, analysts and lawmakers are urging the Pentagon to rethink the way it operates in the electromagnetic spectrum to gain new advantages over near-peer competitors, such as Russia and China. Over the past few decades, competitors’ advancements in sensor and missile technology have forced the US military to operate farther and farther away from its intended targets, according to a report released this week by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment (CSBA). The Pentagon must shift toward using low-power countermeasures to defeat enemy sensors, as well as low-power sensors and communications. During a Dec. 2 event on Capitol Hill to release the report, the report’s co-authors and CSBA senior fellows Mark Gunzinger and Bryan Clark said the military must invest in technology to avoid detection and confuse enemy air defenses — for instance stealth aircraft, electronic jammers and decoys. Cheap, expendable unmanned vehicles, in the air or undersea, are crucial to this approach, they said. Much of this technology is already fielded, but the Pentagon is not using it to its full potential, Clark stressed. Advancements like electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, the Navy’s Next-Generation Jammer and the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program — an upgrade of the SLQ-32 shipboard electronic warfare (EW) system — are a good start. But the military could do much more with these systems, Clark said.
“So these new systems are coming out with these new technologies, but they are not necessarily being used in a way that exploits those new technologies — they are going to be used in a way that simply mimics how the predecessor system was used,” Clark said. “New operational concepts are necessary to leverage the technologies we’re already fielding.”
The Pentagon must invest in improving networking between the individual systems, agility in frequency and power, multi-functionality and miniaturization, Clark said. For example, operators could take a sophisticated jammer, currently deployed on an existing aircraft, and install it on a low-cost, expendable UAV that could penetrate farther into enemy territory.
Gunzinger blamed a “stove-piped” acquisition process, both within and between the armed services, for slowing progress in developing new concepts of operations in electronic warfare.
“That kind of a structure doesn’t really facilitate — it’s not conducive to the development of multifunction capabilities, such as an array that can act as a radar or a jammer or [do] cyber, and perhaps other missions, all in one package,” Gunzinger said. “Who is going to be the guru who is the champion for developing a new capability across the DoD?”
Reps. Randy Forbes, R-Va., Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., John Larson, R-Conn., and Jim Langevin, D-R.I., also spoke at the event.
One major program the Pentagon could rethink is the Air Force’s much-delayed effort to recapitalize its Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) fleet, Gunzinger told Defense News before to the official report release. In a highly networked, contested environment, it does not make sense to use a non-stealthy business jet for battlefield management, he said.
Although the Air Force has used JSTARS to great effect in the Middle East over the past few decades, the operational concept of the plane is “already untenable,” Clark said.
“JSTARS is getting flown really hard in places like the Middle East where there’s no threat, and even that is starting to be constrained because there’s places that it can’t fly anymore because of the air threat in Syria and from Iran and the air threat from Russia,” Clark said.
Some offices in the Pentagon are examining whether the military needs a dedicated, manned aircraft to conduct both battle management and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), Gunzinger sai