[Yr7-10it] weaponize the spectrum

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Army Developing Teams for Electronic Warfare 

By THOM SHANKER nytimes.com Published: March 7, 2009 

WASHINGTON — Viewed by its sister services as the less brainy branch of 
the armed forces, the Army over recent years had neglected to maintain 
its own ability to fight electronic warfare, relying instead on the 
expertise of the Air Force and the Navy. 

But the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have introduced deadly new 
threats and proved how that lack of attention to electronic warfare has 
put soldiers directly at risk. 

Information-age attacks, like improvised explosive devices detonated by 
cellphones, radios and garage door openers, have claimed more lives than 
any other type. 

And there are high-tech benefits that must be managed, including friend-
or-foe tracking devices and surveillance drones that beam video straight 
to troops in battle.

In response, the Army is developing its own electronic warfare teams. 

The initial goal is to train more than 1,600 people from enlisted ranks 
through the officer corps by 2013, and to double that in the following 
years, giving the Army enough of these specialists to rival its sister 
services and surpass all of the NATO allies combined.

Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli was the first person to sound an alarm that the 
Army’s neglect of electronic warfare was endangering troops. 

General Chiarelli was serving as the No. 2 commander in Iraq when he sent 
a memorandum to Army leadership at the Pentagon in February 2006, warning 
that soldiers were unable to operate the new high-tech gear that was 
being rushed to the war zone to counter the rising threat of improvised 
explosive devices, or I.E.D.s.

General Chiarelli also warned Army headquarters that the ability of 
commanders and troops to communicate was diminishing as allied and 
American radios and electronic jamming gear fought for space on the 
limited broadcast bands, degrading the quality of transmissions all 
across the spectrum.

“When I first got over there in 2004 and in 2005, we didn’t have any Army 
electronic warfare capabilities,” said General Chiarelli, who is now the 
Army vice chief of staff. 

“It became deadly apparent in 2006, with the rise of I.E.D.s. At the same 
time, we were having big problems with the jammers and how to deconflict 
them with all of the other radio and signals traffic.”

The Army reached out to the other services for help. Adm. Mike Mullen, 
then the chief of naval operations but since promoted to chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff, immediately ordered to Iraq hundreds of sailors 
who specialized in electronic warfare. 

“They saved a lot of lives when they came over,” General Chiarelli said. 

“They became the most important person in each formation down to the 
battalion level. They were sought out by soldiers who knew they had to 
learn this kind of warfare.”

In the three years since, hundreds of Air Force personnel have also 
served as electronic warfare specialists with ground units in Iraq.

In that time, the Army has produced a doctrine on electronic warfare that 
will join other new field manuals, including a better known one on 
counterinsurgency, that are transforming how the service prepares for and 
fights wars. 

The Army’s new field manual, “FM 3-36, Electronic Warfare in Operations,” 
instructs commanders in how to integrate electronic warfare into all 
tasks, from planning to carrying out military operations. It also lays 
out a program for training personnel and sets the requirements for 
equipment.

“We simply have to look at ways to attack, and to protect ourselves, all 
across the frequency spectrum,” said Col. Laurie Moe Buckhout, chief of 
the Army’s electronic warfare division.

Managing communications, and protecting those transmissions, is 
complicated enough in the civilian world, but the problem is magnified in 
a combat zone, which is cluttered with sometimes conflicting radio 
signals from various American and allied units.

Military risk assessments note that potential adversaries, from nation 
states to terrorist groups, are seeking to increase their abilities to 
attack electronic frequencies. 

The goal would be to scramble radio and cellphone traffic, block signals 
from convoys that allow headquarters to track the movements of troops and 
supplies, or jam data from satellites that feed vital navigation systems.

“The enemy’s ability to weaponize the spectrum to detonate an I.E.D. was 
just the tip of the iceberg,” Colonel Buckhout said. 

Electronic warfare is among the military’s most highly classified 
efforts, routinely carried out in conjunction with the nation’s 
intelligence agencies. It focuses on signals carried by radio and 
microwave frequencies, and is usually confined to a tactical battlefield 
setting.

It is separate from the other growing field of combat, cyber warfare, 
which deals with defending or attacking computer networks, with local, 
national and even international impact.

» A version of this article appeared in print on March 8, 2009, on page 
A20 of the New York edition. 

--
Cheers
Stephen