Electronic Warfare – The Forgotten Discipline
Why is the Refocus on this Traditional Warfare Area Key for Modern Conflict?
By Commander Malte von Spreckelsen, DEU N, NATO Joint Electronic Warfare Core Staff
If people talk about a modern conflict, most agree that such a conflict will be fought in all dimensions possible. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has a good view about threats it might encounter on land, on and below the sea, in the air, and in space. Furthermore, cyberspace is increasingly a bright focus area for NATO. Nations continue to develop new weapon systems to operate in these dimensions, but unfortunately, NATO initiatives have, in many cases, not embraced and developed the discipline of Electronic Warfare (EW). A generation of military professionals has grown up without thinking much about the vulnerabilities inherent in operational reliance on the electromagnetic spectrum.
In its EW policy,1 NATO defines Electronic Warfare as ‘a military action that exploits electromagnetic energy, both actively and passively, to provide situational awareness and create offensive and defensive effects’. It is warfare within the Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS) and (shown in Figure 1) involves the military use of electromagnetic energy to prevent or reduce an enemy’s effective use of the EMS while protecting its use for friendly forces.
https://www.japcc.org/electronic-warfare-the-forgotten-discipline/
