Defense News
April 22-28, 2002
Pg. 6

EW Study Draws U.S. Air Chief Ire

By Gail Kaufman and Frank Tiboni

Unconvinced that a joint U.S. Navy and Air Force study on replacing EA-6B electronic jamming planes considered enough options, Gen. John Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, has sent it back to his staff for further review.

In an April 15 interview, Jumper said he is not satisfied with the results of the 22-month Airborne Electronic Attack Analysis of Alternatives (AEA AOA) because it focused more on replacing airplanes than on how to perform the mission.

"Electronic warfare conjures up notions of pods that jam things and bash electrons," Jumper said. "Is that a mission? What are we trying to do?

"What we are trying to do is penetrate warheads to targets  manned or unmanned. That s the objective of electronic warfare," he said.

Jumper acknowledges that buying a new plane may be part of the solution, but he questions whether the study considered the entire spectrum of options.

"I am not satisfied that our analysis of alternatives on electronic warfare has given us the right answer," he said. "I want the answer and I want it right."

Instead, Jumper suggests the study should have pondered more ways to defeat threats like enemy surface-to-air missiles.

"Well, you could take down the [enemy air defense] network, defend yourself with tow decoys [pulled behind an aircraft]. Certainly, jamming pods might be a piece of that," he said. "But you could probably [find] four or five ways that could come together to get this job done."

The AEA AOA should have taken an effects-based approach, Jumper said.

For example, rather than confront a threat head-on, it may be better to knock out something the threat depends on, such as its power source or communications links.

"In the past, the main & way was jamming," Jumper said. "There is a good part of the [electronic warfare] community that is a little bit angry with me, because I am not willing to go out and just give in to buying a bigger electron basher."

The classified 2,000-page AEA AOA, led by the Navy, was completed Dec. 15. It identified 27 options to replace the EA-6B Prowler. Costs and solutions varied greatly, from buying a fleet of business jets with a total ownership cost of $26 billion to fielding a combination of jammer-equipped F/A-18 and F-22 fighters and B-52 bombers with a price tag of $82 billion.

The study also concluded there might not be any significant breakthroughs in electronic warfare before the Navy begins replacing its fleet of 122 Prowlers in 2010.

"The current Air Force leadership sees information warfare growing in importance, with electronic warfare as a subset of that," said Christopher Bolkcom, an aviation analyst for the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress. "The Air Force is saying we need to keep the aperture open and not to assume the solution has to be a Prowler replacement."

Edward "Pete" Aldridge, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told the Navy and the Air Force to devise a three-phase plan by June 3 to put new electronic warfare capabilities in the air as early as 2004.

The debate on Capitol Hill is how to best spend the $50 billion to $70 billion needed to protect U.S. aircraft from being attacked in enemy airspace, said the co-chairman of the Electronic Warfare Working Group, an informal congressional body concerned about this issue.

"We re asking: What is the best way to spend $50 billion so that future Russian SA-20 surface-to-air missile sites are blinded so U.S. air crews can return to base safely?" said Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., a former Prowler crew member, in an April 18 telephone interview.

The AEA AOA did not clearly identify a solution to rebuild the U.S. military s electronic warfare capability, said Kirk, who served as a Navy intelligence officer aboard an EA-6B Prowler in Kosovo and Iraq.

Tactical jamming aircraft, which fly into enemy territory, would provide better support than standoff jamming aircraft, which fly hundreds of miles away from hostile territory, he said. Their electronic warfare systems provide better protection to U.S. attack aircraft and emit less harmful radiation for aircrews, the congressman added.

Kirk said he believes that the EA-6BC, a new variant of the Prowler; the F/A-18G, an electronic warfare version of the Super Hornet; or a jammer model of the multirole Joint Strike Fighter would be the best solution to replace the venerable Prowler.

Jumper s stance on electronic warfare differs sharply from that of his predecessor, retired Air Force Gen. Michael Ryan.

In November 2000, Ryan, then chief of staff of the Air Force, released a position statement on electronic warfare that took a completely different stance, calling for an organic system to support the service s Air Expeditionary Forces (AEFs).

The AEFs are 10 warfighting teams, each with a mixture of weapon systems from geographically separated units, that can respond to a crisis within 72 hours.

"The current perspective in the Air Force is very different from Ryan," Bolkcom said. "This is a real change in policy for the Air Force." One former Air Force official familiar with electronic jamming requirements, said such studies consistently are criticized for having a narrow focus.

"The bottom line is, the EA-6Bs are falling apart, their mission area is still vital to the U.S. military, including the Air Force, and something has to be done now," he said April 18. "The Air Force needs to lay out how it would support this mission area correctly for all the services if it thinks the AOA solution is flawed."

Christian Lowe contributed to this report.