The Electronic Warfare Threat

The threat posed by EW from potential adversaries has increased considerably in recent years. Modern technology has increased the capability of equipment, its flexibility and the number of operating modes, including countermeasures. Sophisticated weapon systems can employ electromagnetic energy (laser, Infrared or RADAR) to search for and/or guide weapons. Communications systems have proliferated both in number and type. Sophisticated encryption and frequency diversity has made the job of EM spectrum exploitation even more complicated. The EW threat can be categorised as strategic and tactical.

Strategic EW Threat

The strategic EW threat is constant and conducted by many potential adversaries and indeed “friendly” or partner nations. The aims of strategic EW are multi-fold and range from economic intelligence, industrial espionage, political intentions and military dispositions, strengths and weaknesses. Nations with well developed capabilities will use its EW or SIGINT resources, usually from within its own geographic borders, to exploit another nation’s use of the EM spectrum by intercepting long range communications systems, such as satellite communications, HF and trunk telephone networks. EW and SIGINT activities may also be conducted by one country against another as a defensive operation in a non-hostile manner to perhaps identify and track individuals or organisations that operate outside the political borders of any nation, for example the Al Queda terrorist organisation.
Strategic EW and SIGINT resources can be located on Maritime, Land and Air platforms.
• Maritime platforms may be overt naval warships or covert merchant vessels that can operate legally and freely in international waters but able to position themselves relatively close to shorelines and capable of intercepting HF, VHF and satellite communications systems.
• Land Platforms are usually large SIGINT stations capable of long range HF communications intercept and Direction Finding and intercept of satellite communications. These activities may be conducted by military and civilian organisations, or a mixture of both, and targets will be dependent on that nation’s standing and priority intelligence requirements.
• Air Platforms, including satellites are particularly useful for collecting communications that rely on line of sight and for low power short range systems and RADARs.

 
Tactical EW Threat

The tactical EW threat begins once military operations are being prepared when information and intelligence gathered by the adversary may be used to influence its decisions and activities in either a defensive or offensive nature.
The adversary will attempt to establish an Electronic Order of Battle (EOB) of own or friendly forces and will attempt to exploit our command, control and communications (C3) to establish our locations, strengths, weakness and intentions. The adversary will use its EW for its own intentions and warnings. Unlike the strategic SIGINT/EW threat, the tactical EW threat will also include ECM in an attempt to disrupt our C3 and weapons systems.
Although not posing an actual EW threat to own or friendly forces, we must also not forget that the adversary will be continuously assessing and developing its own EPM to protect itself from the affects of our EW activities and we should therefore be aware that perhaps our offensive EW activities may not be as effective as we had planned or hoped.
Finally, the asymmetric threat is rapidly increasing and is the more realistic threat for offensive and defensive military operations and is present in the strategic and tactical arenas and it is clear that terrorist organisations are using certain EW techniques against us. Although these organisations may not have the sophisticated long range capabilities that modern military or nations possess, they are certainly capable of exploiting low level communications in peace time and during high intensity conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Insurgents can use relatively cheap and simple radio scanners to intercept communications that have not been secured using cryptographic keying material and the information and intelligence they derive can have devastating implications. The insurgent will use low level EW to fuse with any Human Intelligence (HUMINT) activities he may be conducting, therefore own or friendly EPM and other personnel security measures must be adhered to, exercised regularly and developed. The insurgent may also use information passed to
him from those states that are hostile to us and who may have well developed EW capability and who wish to de-stabilise the region.