“Raid Breaker” and the Restoration of U.S. Navy Electronic Warfare Prowess

It’s pretty widely known that radars, voice and data communications, GPS signals, and the like can be jammed. It’s another thing entirely to experience intense (or subtle) jamming firsthand; to be forced to operate ‘degraded’ without seamless external connectivity or a clear and trustworthy situational picture.  

It’s also pretty widely understood that one’s radio and radar transmissions can be detected at considerable distances by an opponent. It’s another thing entirely to review a 'hygiene' report detailing all the exploitable radiofrequency emissions friendly signals intelligence assets detected seeping out of one’s unit or battleforce, with each essentially representing a self-inflicted crosshair.

This is why regular, rigorous, and realistic combat training under conditions of electromagnetic opposition is so critical to developing force readiness for modern war. How else are crews going to learn how to fight-through intense electronic attacks? How else are they going to learn how to safely perform complex and dangerous operations with active sensors turned off and all but the most directional of communications paths silent? How else are they going to learn how to play their individual roles in neutralizing an adversary’s surveillance-reconnaissance-strike apparatus?

As I’ve pointed out many times previously, the U.S. Navy possessed these exact competencies as recently as 25 years ago. We not only let the skills atrophy, but we also forgot as an institution how much we had achieved. Today, if you want to gain a glimpse at how good we once were at operating in severely contested electromagnetic environments, just about the only unclassified sources are the works of Norman Friedman, Mark Clemente, and Robert Angevine.

This amnesia is starting to recede, however. Despite the fact that one of ADM Greenert’s focal points as CNO has been advocacy for restoring the fleet’s electronic warfare prowess, until recently there just haven’t been many voices in the field grade officer ranks and below publicly echoing his calls. That’s what makes LCDR Jack Curtis’s excellent piece at The Bridge a few weeks ago so noteworthy. Curtis first details the U.S. Navy’s Cold War-era electronic warfare competence, then makes a compelling case that today’s fleet is neither conditioned nor organized to ‘fight in the dark.’ He also points out many of the inherent vulnerabilities of the myriad communications pathways we’ve come to take for granted over the past two decades. While I think it’s important to note that some basic approaches to force-level networking at sea are far less vulnerable to exploitation than others, I strongly agree with Curtis that naval forces employing even highly-directional line-of-sight or low probability of intercept communications pathways must be prepared for the possibility of degraded, compromised, or severed connectivity. He’s absolutely correct that this preparation demands a force command and control doctrine rooted in the philosophy of command by negation, plus a training regime that cultivates the requisite skillsets. I’d add that one of the most important of those skills is the ability to operate in spite of jamming and deception against electromagnetic sensors.

The calls to restore the fleet’s electronic warfare capacity are also starting to come from executive DOD leadership. Although electronic warfare didn’t receive marquee attention in the 'Third Offset’ initiative's kickoff statement last fall, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work made a choice reference to the Navy’s Cold War-era electronic warfare feats in his November 2014 CFR speech:

“We also need to get back in the game of demonstrating. This drives me crazy. In the Cold War, we used to demonstrate—and demonstrations were very powerful, both to assure our allies and to deter adversaries. Nifty nugget exercises. We would take carrier battle groups, go [EMCON], and we'd shut down, and we'd try to get across the Atlantic Ocean without the Soviets seeing it. And we got pretty good at it.

We did it all the time. And we would light up when we got to a fjord in Norway and said, "Here we are." And these demonstrations were a very, very important part of our global posture. And we want to get back to doing that.”

Fast forward to the DEPSECDEF’s speech at the McAleese/Credit Suisse Defense Programs Conference last month:

“So the first aspect of the Third Offset Strategy is to win a guided munitions salvo competition.  If you cannot do that, and if you cannot convince your adversary that you will dominate in that competition, then they may feel emboldened to pull the trigger, and they may feel that they can forestall us in projecting power into a theater.  A larger salvo of guided munitions generally will defeat a smaller salvo of guided munitions.  So, this competition we have to think through.

Winning that competition will keep our adversaries off-balance.  The punch of the third offset strategy is:  How are we going to change what we are going to do once we get into a theater and solve that first competition?  That is unknown.  We are still trying to figure that out.

But if anybody here -- remember the assault-breaker ACTD in the 1975s which led us to the second offset strategy?  We need a “Raid Breaker.”  We need a demonstration called Raid Breaker which can demonstrate that if someone throws a salvo of 100 guided munitions, we'll be able to ride it out.  It doesn't have to be a kinetic solution.  Hell, I don't really want a kinetic solution.  That gets into an imposing cost strategy on us.  It's got to be something else.  So if anybody in this room has an idea for Raid Breaker, believe me, we'd like to hear it.

Another big area of concern is the electromagnetic spectrum.  Electronic Warfare (EW) is often regarded as a combat-enabler.  Our adversaries don't think so.  They believe it is an important part of their offensive and defensive arsenal.  And it's going to be in the forefront of any initial guided munitions salvo exchange.  For relatively small investments, you get an extremely high potential payoff.  And our competitors are trying to win in the EW competition.

Now, we still have a lead, I think.  That lead is diminishing rapidly.  I worry about it.  Today, I'm signing a memo that establishes an Electronic Warfare Programs Council which starts to take a look at all of our investments across the Department and makes strategic recommendations to the Secretary and I on how we change that portfolio.  This was a recommendation of the Defense Science Board and I thought it was a good one.”

He leaves no question in my mind that electronic warfare is at the heart of any ‘raid breaker’ concept. I couldn’t agree more.

To be clear, electronic warfare on its own would not be sufficient to defeat an adversary’s ability to hurl long-range guided munitions at U.S. forces—especially at sea. Kinetic weapons would still play important roles in offensive sweeps and outer-layer defenses against an adversary’s warships and aircraft. Kinetic weapons would also be needed in inner zone defensive backstops. Kinetic weapons might additionally be useful in suppressing an adversary’s striking forces’ operational tempos (such as sortie/salvo sizes and rates) via U.S. strikes against their bases and supporting logistical infrastructure. But all of these kinetic aspects of a ‘raid breaker’ concept would still lean heavily on the use of electronic warfare against the adversary’s surveillance/reconnaissance apparatus. Just about any operation deep within a contested zone, let alone a strike deep within an adversary's territory, would depend heavily on comprehensive electronic warfare support. Which makes it all the more noteworthy that the DEPSECDEF said what he did.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.