With Murray’s own HQ, Army Futures Command, stood up this August in Austin, the notoriously hidebound Army is making a concerted effort to reach out beyond its comfort zone and embed its officers, scientists, and civil servants in a wider world of civilian innovation, where hoodies are more in vogue than uniforms.

“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.”

The JSDR database won’t just keep American communications officers from mistakenly scrambling each others’ signals, either. By providing a comprehensive baseline of what friendly transmissions look like, the mega-database will make it easier for Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Electronic Warfare (EW) troops to hone in on enemy transmissions.

But while the skies are quiet today, US Pacific Air Forces are preparing for possible conflict: fielding new weapons like the F-35 stealth fighter and the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), adding more space-operations planners to theater staffs, and reemphasizing that old-fashioned initiative so junior commanders can act when an enemy cuts off their communications with higher headquarters.

The Russians played around at the edges of this month’s Trident Juncture exercise in Norway, but that was to be expected. New moves in the Baltic Sea, however, have some concerned.

WASHINGTON: Army planners are thrashing out how many electronic warfare specialists the service needs, not just to rebuild radio-jamming and spoofing capability in combat units, but to create a training cadre that can sustain the EW corps for the long-term. Whether this plan for robust growth — certainly hundreds of soldiers, possibly over a thousand… Keep reading →

HALIFAX: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs expressed frustration Saturday over the refusal of some tech giants to work with the US military. “I have a hard time with companies that are working very hard to engage in the market inside China,” said Gen. Joe Dunford at the Halifax Security Forum, “then don’t want to work… Keep reading →

“NATO is clear that we will not perform offensive cyberspace operations,” said Maj. Gen. Wolfgang Renner. “However, we will integrate sovereign cyberspace effects from the allies who are willing to volunteer.”

“We failed the audit. We never expected to pass it,” Pat Shanahan said. But at least the Space Force will cost less than half of the Air Force’s estimate.

Until cyber operators can both train realistically and see the their digital battlespace as clearly as traditional commanders see physical battlespace, they’ll be hard-pressed to defend everyone else’s systems.