It’s not all about AI and software. You need hardware compact enough — and secure enough — to deploy into a war zone.

The US Army can’t match Russia’s battalions of powerful radio jammers. Instead, it’s trying to build a nimble high-tech David to defeat the EW Goliath.

“We have not achieved $2.3 billion in budget growth,” Pentagon EW acquisitions director Bill Conley told me. “We are continuing to add investment (and) we are addressing the most pressing gaps.”

WASHINGTON: With Russian jammers blasting Ukrainian radios off the air, the US Defense Department’s racing to regain its edge in electronic warfare. But there’s been no comprehensive strategy to guide all the armed services’ efforts — until now. The first Defense Department-wide electronic warfare strategy is “basically finished” and headed to Secretary Ashton Carter’s desk… Keep reading →

ALEXANDRIA: The executive committee on electronic warfare that Deputy Secretary Bob Work created last year is already reshaping the Pentagon bureaucracy. While the four-star officers and top civilians who make up the “EXCOM” itself have only met three times, executive committee co-chair Frank Kendall, undersecretary of acquisition, technology, and logistics, has created a new EW office and chosen… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Our regular readers already know the bad news about electronic warfare. Russia and China are rapidly catching up to the US in jamming, spoofing, and electronic eavesdropping. Senior Pentagon officials say the technological gap between them and us is shrinking, especially on those technologies that have made the biggest difference: GPS, drones, smart weapons,… Keep reading →