As NATO contemplates war in the spectrum, the alliance must consider evolving threats, current and desired capabilities, training and simulation challenges and the impact of Multi-Domain Operations.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) faces instability and the risk of war on its doorstep and outside its traditional areas which directly impacts the alliance’s Electronic Warfare (EW) posture. Where should the alliance’s effort fall as it seeks in future contested and congested electromagnetic environments? Broadly speaking, these efforts can be divided into four distinct, but overlapping, areas; recognising the threat landscape; investing in capabilities; training and simulation and Multi-Domain Operations (MDO).
The Threatscape
Luc Dondainas, communications intelligence and communications electronic support/electronic countermeasures domain expert at Rohde & Schwarz, says NATO’s threat landscape is characterised by “a posture change from asymmetric to symmetric threat.” The ongoing war in Ukraine is undoubtedly concentrating alliance minds: Ukraine has “awakened leaders to EW challenges. Remember, commanders don’t move unless there is a crisis … I think Ukraine convinced many a ‘doubting Thomas’ about the need to EW,” argues Zachary George, CRFS’ international market development manager.
Russia’s electromagnetic machinations are not confined to the Ukraine theatre. Global Navigation Satellite Signal (GNSS) jamming has been experienced in NATO’s northern European and Baltic areas: “Russian GNSS jamming and its impact on systems beyond the Russian sovereign territory was analysed to fall into one of five categories,” says Major E. Bamford, principal staff officer for electromagnetic warfare for the Norwegian Armed Forces. These include “(n)on-intentional jamming; deliberate jamming which ignores the impact on systems; jamming to signal discontent with a nation, region or competing alliance; jamming to apply political pressure or coercion, and preparation of the battlespace by establishing a ‘new normal’ that clouds the Western allies’ ability to understand the situation.” Euan Walker, vice president of capability at Leonardo’s United Kingdom subsidiary, argues that the GNSS jamming needs to be a wake-up call, as does the need to operate with relative ease in heavily electromagnetically congested and contested environments: “Resilient operation in the face of GNSS denial is necessary, as is ensuring the survivability of the platforms delivering the EW effect.”
Similarly concerning are unauthorised Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) flights by state or non-state actors over sensitive military or civilian strategic installations. Maj. Bamford says that in the late summer and early autumn of 2022 “Norway experienced several of what may appear to be foreign UAVs being used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collection. This signalled a will and ability to overtly operate with a degree of deniability … The Norwegian EW community as such was indirectly involved in the handling of these incidents.” The Norwegian military and police are now working together on developing countermeasures for small UAVs.
The widespread use of UAVs in the Ukrainian theatre illustrates this threat’s direction of travel. A written statement supplied to Armada by Etienne Lacroix warns that civilian UAVs can be rapidly militarised and used in “unexpected tactical employments … A civilian drone can become a deadly weapon in a very short time.” Likewise, “the emergence of combat UAVs and loitering munitions” adds to the spectrum warrior’s missions: “The role of UAV platforms has been a game changer adding a threat in the third dimension that can also be detected by RF (Radio Frequency) sensors and countered by their respective effectors,” observes Mr. Dondainas paradoxically presenting an opportunity. Is NATO’s membership confident it has the electronic warfare tools to detect and defeat military and civilian UAVs on and off the battlefield?
NATO must also be aware of the shape of EW threats it may face from Russia during any future conflict: “My view is that Russia is forced to look at new technologies now that some of the current ones clearly do not work as expected towards a perceived lesser adversary,” observes Maj. Bamford. “Taking into account the amount of smart people that are fleeing forced drafting, Russia will have to look to the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK), Islamic Republic of Iran and People’s Republic of China to restock and rebuild a conventional capability.” This could increase the work burden for “the EW community as it adds to the mix that we are likely to encounter, that we need to be aware of and be able to supress in a possible confrontation.”
Nonetheless Paul ‘Heywood’ Vavra, an international executive consultant specialising in defence, aviation and post-secondary education, warns against complacency. He cites threat perceptions of capabilities like Russia’s S-400 (NATO reporting name SA-21 Growler) long-range, high-altitude surface-to-air missile system: “For a long time there was a perception that most of the double-digit SAM systems like the S-400 were unbeatable ‘Death Stars’. Now, unfortunately, that mindset appears to be changing. There is the risk that we will think ourselves impervious to these systems based on what we saw in the Ukraine war.” Mr. Varva warns “we are leaning away from the ‘we’re all gonna die’ mode to ‘we can beat this’ mode without looking at the more likely situation in between.” To this end, NATO needs to improve jamming technology holistically, urges Dr. Sue Robertson, director of EW Defence and author of Practical ESM Analysis. This could merit a revisiting of “techniques such as cross-eye jamming that have largely been ignored in recent years.” Jamming as a whole “was left on the side during several decades of asymmetric warfare, where spectrum superiority was always granted,” recognises Mr. Dondainas.
Events in Ukraine are teaching NATO a lot, Mr. Vavra adds, but with a note of caution: “Hopefully we have been able to collect a lot of good technical signals intelligence data to help develop counters to Chinese, Russian and Iranian EW capabilities and electromagnetically-dependent systems, as well as tactics, techniques and procedures. That said, unless we truly learn lessons, the data derived will be stuffed into published doctrines and roadmaps never to be dusted off and used effectively.” The risk here is that “we will rest on our laurels and fall yet again behind.”
Capabilities
NATO must also address capability shortfalls, with airborne tactical jamming being a bottleneck flagged by Mr. George: “Only the US Navy’s Boeing E/A-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft provides this capability,” he argues, “and they are not routinely stationed in Europe.” He encourages NATO to invest in airborne jamming systems mounted on inhabited and uninhabited aircraft. Mr. Vavra also cautions against non-US nations’ overreliance on US-provided assets like the E/A-18G. That said, Germany is moving ahead with the acquisition of the Eurofighter Tornado-ECR electronic attack jet. These will replace the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) legacy Panavia Tornado-ECR platforms.
From an electronic support perspective, it is imperative that capabilities be “developed or upgraded to cater for the detection and identification of modern radars” using active electronically scanned array, multiple-in, multiple-out and broadband techniques, argues Dr. Robertson. Mr. Walker agrees: “The threat environment is rapidly changing. The increasing prevalence of digitisation in the electromagnetic battlespace allows threat emitters to employ increasingly agile capabilities across a broad frequency range. The EW response needs to match this reality in operationally relevant timeframes.” At the same time, “The RF spectrum is increasingly contested and congested, imposing challenges on the timely detection and identification of complex waveforms and increasing the interoperability task whilst operating amongst friendly forces.”
“Another challenge is to develop methods to paint an accurate picture of the electromagnetic environment,” Dr. Robertson observes. “This task is currently seen as a priority by many military and government EW actors. Although research is being carried out on novel techniques like quantum sensing, there is a gap in current knowledge that could be filled by developing existing data gathering and analysis to improve situational awareness.” Allied to this is the need to maintain a realistic view of the potential of emerging technologies like cognitive electronic warfare. These embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning approaches: “Whilst cognitive EW is a popular topic, there is a desire to replace whole systems, such as the monitoring of airspace including the detection of threats and threat responses, exclusively by AI systems to the exclusion of expert humans,” Dr. Robertson observes. “Cognitive EW has a role in specific tasks within such a system, such as for the confirmation of known emitter characteristics, but significant expert human intervention will still be needed to operate whole EW systems.”
Moreover, “we are way further behind than we like to think we are,” concerning the adoption of cognitive techniques in electronic warfare, argues Dr. Karen Haigh, director of Haskill Consulting. Together with Julia Andrusenko, Dr. Haigh is the author of Cognitive Electronic Warfare: An Artificial Intelligence Approach. She says that EW systems have been fielded using AI techniques, albeit not necessarily the most advanced. What is slowing the uptake of cognitive techniques across the NATO and allied EW enterprise? “The artificial intelligence and RF communities are just so disjointed. The two are not really talking to each other.” She has a recipe for bringing these two communities together: “What really needs to happen is that people on the RF side need to learn more about the AI stuff and vice versa. The AI community needs to say to the EW community ‘OK, this is where you are currently, and this is where you’d like to be. Let’s look at how AI can help you with that’.”
Dr. Haigh cites initiatives like the US Defence Advanced Research Agency’s Grand Challenge. Commencing in 2004, this saw robotic vehicles competing to win a cash prize. The effect of the Grand Challenge on the autonomous vehicle community was “that the research exploded. We are not yet there with autonomous vehicles, but we are getting close.” She recommends a similar competitive approach to pushing forward the embrace of AI in EW systems and techniques. One example Dr. Haigh gives is a similar competition to advance cognitive EW in the counter-UAV realm. Some steps have already been taken in this regard like the US Army’s Rapid Capabilities Office’s Signal Classification Challenge. Taking place in 2018 this applied deep learning algorithms to blind signal classification and characterisation. Obviously, classification is a perennial concern across the EW enterprise. Nonetheless, Dr. Haigh argues there are workarounds which can help accelerate research with preserving discretion. “You can keep your data private, but you can open algorithms and get people to work on them to see how they could improve or exploit them.”
Data sharing is an area which Mr. George argues can be stove piped within NATO: “There is still a weariness to share EW data. There should be a mindset shift for policymakers and commanders in terms of sharing.” This is paramount as Maj. Bamford argues that “EW resource pooling across nations is needed to build the required EW resilience and capabilities.” An example he cites is regional electronic warfare combat aircraft reprogramming. This could help locally based NATO Lockheed Martin F-35 series and Saab Gripen-E combat aircraft work seamlessly and be protected within a Russian anti-access/area denial dominated space.
Interoperability must be seen across the board, argues Mr. Vavra. This encompasses “software, hardware, communications and databases … for NATO and allied nations as well.” He warns that “EW resources are too few and too expensive to be totally stove piped. The money spent on redundancies could be better spent on expanded capabilities. Yes, industry needs to keep their systems proprietary, they are businesses after all, but seamless interoperability is key.” Mr. Vavra adds that this will need firm directives from the customer to become a reality: “Industry isn’t just going to do this on their own.” Mr. Dondainas agrees: “Allied and joint interoperability is of course at the heart of the alliance’s force efficiency. Usually, the brigade is a key level of interoperability for land forces. But interoperability is also a critical topic for naval and air forces, above all at the joint level, where cooperative and joint operations are required.”
Training and Simulation
“Injecting EW effects into training exercises is vital,” says Mr. George: “Real jamming, real surveillance. Just like how medical training involves realistic fake blood and injuries, so too must EW.” Etienne Lacroix’s statement agrees. Offensive and defensive EW components must be included at all levels of training. Likewise, electromagnetic vulnerabilities must be considered at all levels of the system design process. Everything needs to be protected “from high value assets often in the rear of the combat line” to the tactical edge. Meeting NATO’s EW challenges also calls for “a higher degree of regional integration on EW programmes, test and evaluation, modelling and simulation, and cross-boarder EW training,” says Maj. Bamford.
This need for realism is apparent in the EW systems testing regime. ELDES told Armada via a written statement there is a need “to improve Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) test methods because the survival of a platform may depend on the efficiency of an ECM.” The company recommends programmable radar emulators to do this as “these not only provide the radar pulses to trigger the ECM reaction, but will also collect the RF ECM response by the system under test and will process it together with the simulated target skin echoes to predict the effect of such an ECM on the threat radar.” The company sees the laboratory-based simulation of EW systems like ECMs further embracing the ‘digital twin’ concept. This is where a system’s capabilities and behaviours are accurately simulated using software. Such an approach is increasingly used for complex system development.
Multi-Domain Operations
Definitions differ, but broadly speaking MDO is characterised as synchronous operations across all domains, at all levels of war using intra- and inter-connected forces. It is a doctrine being embraced by the United States via the US Department of Defence’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) architecture. This aims to facilitate MDO by connecting every warfighter, platform, sensor, weapon, base and capability, henceforth known as assets, within and between disparate forces. The goal is to improve the pace and efficacy of decision-making vis-à-vis one’s adversaries.
Mr. George argues that electronic warfare already embraces the MDO mindset as it operates across the sea, land, air, space and cyber domains. Furthermore, all warfighting in all these domains depends on the electromagnetic spectrum in some shape or form: “Hopefully, seeing that EW is a natural bridge in this regard will allow more EW systems in different domains to feed each other.”
As can be appreciated, the advent of MDO heralds an exponential jump in the quantities of data zooming around the battlespace. For this reason, it is imperative that as much EW processing is done at the sensor so that only relevant data is shared with those who need it. As Mr. George notes, radio and satellite communications at the tactical edge maybe heavily congested and contested. Red forces are unlikely to be passive and will exploit electronic and cyberattack. The net effect is that it may only be possible for the blue force to share small packets of EW data across narrow communications bandwidths. This places a premium on performing as much of the data analysis as possible at the sensor.
Etienne Lacroix’ statement cautions that MDO’s advent risks exposing vulnerabilities. The communications networks MDO depend on to share data risk becoming a centre of gravity targeted by the red force: “MDO is a strength, but also a weakness because every element must be protected or be redundant.” Dr. Robertson cites work that the People’s Republic of China is doing in this regard highlighting the country’s FH-95 UAV. One of this aircraft’s missions is to provide electronic warfare support to inhabited and uninhabited platforms. Given the JADC2’s reliance on sensor-to-shooter links these EW UAVs “could potentially have a significant effect on US combat capabilities. The levels of connectivity heralded by MDO mean that every asset must be designed with integral electronic protection. This underscores the imperative to be ‘EW aware’ at every stage of the system design process. Mr. Walker warns that “Properly coordinated and architected MDO is undoubtedly a force-multiplier. However, if not coordinated, it could generate friction between allies.”
Professor David Stupples, senior research fellow in satellite reconnaissance and surveillance at the London space institute, notes how MDO is influencing network architectures: “In the 1970s and 1980s, most of our military communications were going through very/ultra high frequency radio and landlines,” he observes. Today, we are seeing military communications satellites carrying an increasing weight of the networking burden. This is particularly apparent for beyond line-of-sight traffic. Prof. Stupples warns that, on the one hand, this creates opportunities, but also potential chokepoints: “If you look at the space assets, there is so much data flowing around that we may risk flooding these networks.” He cites incidents in the past where the US military has jammed its own satellite networks through over-use. “The Russians and the Chinese are saying ‘if we can nullify the West’s space assets, we can neutralise a large part of any opposing force’.” This could prevent allied nations fighting synchronously, forcing them to fight sequentially. Russia has learned to her cost in Ukraine the price of performing operations in a sequential, and hence predictable, fashion.
The good news, says Prof. Stupples, is that attacking space assets like communications satellites is easier said than done: “If you try to jam GNSS or SATCOM (Satellite Communications) receivers on the ground you are lit up like a Christmas Tree.” Spoofing GNSS signals is similarly challenging. The aggressor will need to accurately mimic the encoding of an encrypted GNSS signal for the spoofing to be effective. This is something which is easier said than done. Trying to jam any signals at the transmitter, i.e. on the satellite, is nigh on impossible. Eye-watering transmission power is needed to get an effective jamming signal that far out into space and into the transmitter. Once again, you come back to the problem of a powerful jamming signal being a powerful identifier.
What needs to happen now? As an EW community, Mr. Walker says “we need to continually reinforce the point that electromagnetic superiority is fundamental to enabling cross (physical) domain military operations.” We must be aware that “NATO can no longer count on unhindered access to the electromagnetic spectrum.” Ukraine needs to be the wake-up call. Continued electromagnetic threats from the armed forces of China, Russia and their allies like Iran and the DPRK need to be the coffee. Ultimately, “without sustained investment and deployment of advanced EW capabilities, NATO will be more constrained in the military levers it can deploy.”
by Dr. Thomas Withington
