Defense Week
April 30, 2001
Pg. 6

Time To Protect Self-Protection

By Wayne Gilchrest

"All warfare is based on deception," said the ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu in his work, "The Art of War." Although the deceptive role of electronic warfare, or EW, in military operations was probably not what the Chinese strategist had in mind when he wrote those words 2,500 years ago, the concept nevertheless applies to EW.

From Vietnam to the Gulf War and, most recently, over the skies of Serbia and Kosovo, electronic warfare has played a key role in deceiving the enemy and, thus, protecting U.S. aircraft and aircrews. EW can be most easily defined as the control and manipulation of the electromagnetic spectrumradar, radio, and infraredduring military operations.

Since the earliest introduction of radar into the air-defense equation, there has been continuing interaction between electronic detection of combat aircraft, on the one hand, and countermeasures designed to avoid being detected, tracked and targeted, on the other.

Broadly, these countermeasures fall into three categories of electronic deception: 1) standing off from the air battle and creating clutter on enemy radar screens to degrade detection and tracking of penetrating aircraft (stand-off jamming); 2) deceiving an individual radar with a variety of countermeasure techniques utilized by a single penetrating combat aircraft (self-protection); and 3) reducing the radar cross section of a penetrating airborne platform and combining that low observability with evasive tactics (stealth).

The United States has been actively engaged in each of these EW endeavors over the years and has been suitably rewarded with increased combat effectiveness and reduced attrition. But there is a cloud on the horizon. Ironically, the success of these techniques and tactics has not led to the sustained investment needed to keep these systems on the cutting edge in the deadly game of measure and countermeasure.

For example, the impressive performance of the Navy EA-6B Prowler in its standoff-jamming role during the Gulf War should have placed increased emphasis on the mission and the aircraft. But some hasty lessons drawn regarding the ability of U.S. air forces to quickly suppress and destroy the adversary's air defenses led the Air Force to divest its EF-111 Raven aircraft and encouraged the Navy to cancel an important upgrade program on the EA-6B, a platform that has its origins in the early 1970s.

By the time the United States again launched a major air campaign in Operation Allied Force in Kosovo, its "low density, high demand" EA-6Bs were stretched to their limits in providing continuing coverage against a resilient and wily adversary. This standoff-jamming shortfall has led to an ongoing "analysis of alternatives" to determine cost-effective ways to maintain and enhance this needed capability in the future.

For a variety of reasons, our commitment to stealth technology has also been less than adequate. Despite investing billions of dollars to develop stealth, the United States has only a few stealthy airframes to show for it. It took congressional direction to double the buy of the Air Force F-117, but the total inventory of these important medium-range stealth fighters that can deliver precision munitions remains at a mere 59.

And the total buy of the most effective stealthy aircraft fielded thus far, the Air Force B-2, was cut from 132 to 21, owing to post-Cold War demands to reduce the defense budgetand a failure to anticipate the B-2's splendid conventional capability. Moreover, the F-22 has already suffered serious cuts and, at this writing, it appears that the Joint Strike Fighter will not be acquired in the numbers originally planned.

Because investments in standoff and stealth have not kept pace with our military requirements and operational tempo around the globe, it is more important than ever to maintain and improve the third leg of the EW triad: self-protection.

Currently, the EA-6B fleet is estimated to be retired by 2015. The Navy's adding a much-needed Improved Capability (ICAP) III Warfighting Upgradean electronic warfare suite that will allow the aircraft to be able to react selectively to enemy defense radars rather than jamming all frequencies. Still, the EA-6B will remain a low-density platform too much in demand.

Similarly, even if proposals to expand the U.S. stealthy strike force take root, the United States is more than a decade away from bringing on line a robust fleet of long-range B-2s complemented by some stealthy air superiority and ground attack fighters. Therefore, self-protection jamming systems on our legacy fleet of fighter/attack aircraftincluding the F-16, F-18, A-10 and F-15Eare likely to be critical in carrying out U.S. force projection in the near to mid-term.

Obsolete parts

I wish I could report that our effort on self-protection jammers was being managed more effectively than standoff and stealth. Sadly, this is not the case.

We are facing serious problems with obsolete parts and maintenance challenges that threaten our aircraft's ability to protect themselves in a hostile anti-air environment. Electronic warfare is conducted within an ever-changing and increasingly challenging battle space. As currently deployed air-defense systems are upgraded and proliferated, an urgent need exists to sustain and improve these electronic countermeasure, or ECM, pods.

Unfortunately, the lack of funding to sustain, modernize and upgrade the U.S. inventory of self-protection pods will soon result in unsupportable systems and the inability of our air forces to conduct operations. These shortcomings were identified in a 1999 Electronic Warfare Operational Shortfalls study conducted by the Air Force. The findings were reinforced in a RAND Corporation study that same year.

I believe this situation is critical and requires our immediate attention. Therefore, I am encouraging my fellow members of the Electronic Warfare (EW) Working Group and the Congress at large to support these upgrades in the fiscal 2002 budget and thus avert a pending operational shortfall in the self-protection systems of our most plentiful and valuable fighter aircraft.

Ask any bomber or fighter pilot and those who send them into combat: Suppressing enemy air defenses is critical to mission success. Although attention is now being directed toward long-term improvements in standoff and stealth, the United States is not investing adequately in the self-protection systems required by our legacy force to meet near-term power projection requirements.

Restore funds

The shoot-down of an F-117 and an F-16 during Operation Allied Force brought home the seriousness of the challenge and the sophistication of the threat. I was encouraged recently to see the Air Force dedicating more than $100 million worth of spare parts over the next three years to improve the readiness of F-15s and F-16s deployed in Air Expeditionary Forces.

This "readiness spare package" concept should be expanded to include EW self-protection capabilities as a way of meeting parts shortages and curtailing cannibalization. Including self-protection jammers within this concept would also help to properly place responsibility for EW planning and budgeting within the services, rather than relying on Congress to make incremental annual appropriations.

If those vital resources are not adequately and appropriately addressed within the next few budget cycles, our nation will lose the flexibility of sending F-16s and A-10s into combat. If these aircraft are sent off to war, they will go without the protection of critical self-protection pods.

I hope the Defense Department's "top-to-bottom" review, the subsequent Quadrennial Defense Review and the ensuing congressional deliberation on the fiscal 2002 defense budget will restore EW programs in general and self-protection jammers, in particular, to a rightful position of national priority.

As military planners, budgeters and my colleagues in Congress deliberate their agendas, they might find it worthwhile to consider again Sun Tzu's ancient wisdom: "The truly great in warfare are those who not only win, but win with such ease and ingenuity that their wisdom and courage often go unrecognized. Such men do their best to ensure that victory will be theirs before they even commence fighting, placing themselves in an invulnerable position and not missing any opportunity to defeat the enemy. The winner does everything to ensure success before he fights. The loser rushes into combat without adequate preparation."

Gilchrest, a Republican congressman from Maryland's 1st district, is a member of the Congressional Electronic Warfare (EW) Working group, the goal of which is to raise support for and awareness of EW's role in national defense.