Defense News
February 19, 2001
Pg. 11

Information Warfare To Complement Jammer Tactics

By Frank Tiboni, Defense News Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force may de-emphasize jamming in favor of computer warfare tactics that give leaders more flexibility in disrupting enemy communications systems, say Air Force and industry officials.

After 50 years of using overpowering radio waves and infrared energy to protect pilots, the Air Force views using computer bugs and viruses, or information warfare, as a more practical solution to rebuilding its electronic warfare capability, say officials.

"We have, in our electronic warfare community, lived all along with the assumption that we need big powerful pods to bash electrons," Gen. John Jumper, commander of Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Hampton, Va., told Defense News.

"In the world of information warfare today, there are options which are much more sophisticated than that. We may want to manipulate electrons rather than bash them," Jumper said.

Jumper and Col. Dean Yount, deputy director of the Air Force’s electronic warfare program at the Pentagon, will spearhead the service’s effort to rebuild its electronic warfare capability, Brig. Gen. Dan Goodrich, the service’s deputy director for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance at the Pentagon, told Defense News Feb. 9.

Information warfare involves using aggressive computer tactics to disrupt an enemy’s computer and telephone networks [offensive], as well as defensive tactics to protect one’s own networks. Types of information warfare include:

*Viruses: Computer programs written to find a weakness in the security defenses of a communications networks in order to disrupt or destroy telephone, video or data communications.

*Firewalls: Computer programs written to stop outsiders from getting into computer and telephone networks.

Goodrich admitted that the Air Force does possess such a capability. "We do have some successes [in information warfare]," said Goodrich.

Goodrich declined to explain those successes. He also declined to comment on whether the Air Force, has ever used information warfare in combat, such as in Kosovo or the Persian Gulf War. Officials at the Air Force’s Information Warfare Battle Lab also declined comment on the successes, as well as how the service tests, fields and uses the capability.

The San Antonio facility employs 24 Air Force personnel who develop new information warfare techniques, train service personnel in those tactics and influence service doctrine.

A former Air Force captain provided a little more insight into the service’s information warfare program and capability.

"Yes. The Air Force does have some information warfare capability," said Dwayne Williams, who served in the 609 Information War fare Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, S.C.

Williams’ unit helped install an information warfare capability at the service’s major commands. The service must possess an information warfare program because it trains with the capability during its Red Flag exercises held at Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Williams said. The Air Force uses electronic and information warfare tactics during its Red Flag exercises, Lt. Col. Patrick Newcomb, chief of staff of the 414 Training Squadron at Nellis, which administers the exercise, told attendees of the Association of Old Crows convention in October 2000 in Las Vegas.

The association, headquartered in Alexandria, Va., supports the electronic warfare efforts of the Air Force and the U.S. Navy. Williams described some scenarios where the capability would give service leaders more flexibility than jamming. Traditionally, the Air Force would need to drop a bomb or send in a team to blow up an enemy’s command bunker, he said. But with information warfare, the Air Force could disable the power grid that delivers current to the command bunker, Williams said.

This allows the Air Force to control how the enemy functions without killing anyone, he said. "The Air Force can never truly give it [jamming pods] up. But I think moving toward information warfare is a good idea because it gives you more capabilities to accomplish more objectives," said Williams, who now oversees consulting services at SecureLogix Corp., a computer security company in San Antonio.

A former analyst at the National Security Agency and an electronic warfare expert agreed the Air Force should not abandon jamming pods.

"The move [to information warfare] makes a lot of sense. But we’re a long way away" from the day when the services no longer will need electronic jamming, said Dave Adamy, who has authored three books on electronic warfare. Jamming pods emit overpowering radio signals that scramble enemy communication systems in the air or on the ground. The pods, shaped like bombs, fit under the wings of tactical aircraft.

However, bugs and viruses offer a tactical advantage over jamming because they are virtually impossible to trace, Adamy said Feb. 9. Radio signals can be used to jam enemy systems, but they leave a trail, allowing the enemy to target the aircraft or bunker, he said.

"However, while you can reduce the dependence on pods, you should not get rid of them," he said. "Sometimes you may want to jam so the enemy cannot talk, and sometimes you do not want to jam so you can listen in."

Kernan Chaisson, a defense analyst for Forecast International, a Newtown, Conn., consulting firm, told Defense News Feb. 1 that while the Air Force must expand its information warfare operations, it also must maintain an overwhelming jamming capability, which creates another problem.

"The Air Force needs electronic warfare systems for both its escort [in close] and stand-off [far away] missions," he said. "It needs different types of systems for different types of missions."

An official from Northrop Grumman Corp., Los Angeles, which manufactures jamming pods, including the ALQ-131 used primarily on Air Force F-16 fighters, also said the service needs both conventional electronic warfare capability and newer information warfare techniques to protect pilots in the 21st century.

"The synergy for these systems is great. It will require a lot of coordination by the Air Force," Ron Langietti, director of advanced technologies for the Defensive Systems division of Northrop Grumman, told Defense News Jan. 31.