Israel Hid in Plain Sight Against Syria

If you didn't read the Aviation Week article, you should.

Israel’s capabilities are similar to the “Suter” network-invasion capability that was developed by the U.S. using the EC-130 Compass Call electronic attack aircraft to shoot data streams, laced with sophisticated algorithms, into enemy antennas. The passive, RC-135 Rivet Joint electronic surveillance aircraft then monitored enemy signals to ensure the data streams were having the intended effect on the target sensors. Israel duplicated the capability when it fielded its two new Gulfstream G550 special missions aircraft designs. Both were modified by Israel Aerospace Industries’ Elta Div. in time for the 2006 Lebanon war. The ground surveillance radar version can provide data streams from large active, electronically scanned array radars, while the intelligence version provided the signals surveillance and analyses.

Buchris contends that it’s not manpower and technology that limits development, but constructing systems (that can put invasive data streams into enemy networks and then monitor the results) and making them operational.

The new G550 radar and electronic surveillance aircraft, for example, are still “in the process of being integrated into the intelligence system,” the planning official agrees. “The name of the game is balance of systems, intelligence, training, communications and forces. It has to be conducted like an orchestra. If one instrument is out of tune, it doesn’t sound right.”

The special mission aircraft were used during the war with good results, but military officials expect better future exploitation as they are plugged into the Israel Defense Forces’ network. Another handicap in developing Israel’s network attack capabilities is that they haven’t directly enlisted the research potential of their universities as the Pentagon has done in the U.S.

“I know that in the U.S., universities are involved in these kinds of issues,” Buchris says. “But in Israel, we are not. It’s totally different. How the Israeli system works, you can’t share with anybody. I don’t want to go into the issues [of technology development, personnel training and who runs the organization]. It’s very interesting. It’s very sensitive. Any such capabilities are top secret.”

Read it all, very interesting. The art of the soft kill is a science beyond the technical capability of most belligerent little men, and one of the big reasons why Israel can hit a country like Iran and when it was over, Iran wouldn't know who actually did it until they learned about it on CNN.