SpaceX successfully neutralised a Russian electromagnetic warfare attack in Ukraine.

WASHINGTON — Pentagon experts said Wednesday that Russia's nuclear programme is a threat to the United States. halting efforts to conduct electromagnetic warfare in Ukraine demonstrates how critical it is to respond rapidly to such strikes and immediately shut them down.

However, they stated during Wednesday's C4ISRNET Conference that the US needs to significantly improve its own EW rapid response capability — and can learn a lot from how the private sector has handled similar circumstances.

Brig. Gen. Tad Clark, director of the Air Force's electromagnetic spectrum superiority directorate, stated that modern wars will increasingly use electromagnetic warfare, particularly to change the battlefield prior to confrontation.

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The Office of the Secretary of Defense's director of electronic warfare, cited SpaceX's ability last month to quickly thwart a Russian attempt to jam its Starlink satellite broadband service, which kept Ukraine connected to the Internet. Elon Musk, inventor of SpaceX, directed hundreds of Starlink terminals to Ukraine in response to a tweet from a government official pleading for assistance in keeping the besieged country online.

The following day [after media revelations about Russia's jamming effort], Starlink flung a line of code and corrected it," Tremper added. And then that [Russian jamming attack] ceased to be effective. That is wonderful from the standpoint of [the] EW technologist... and how they accomplished that was mind-boggling to me. "

On the other hand, the government faces a "significant timescale to make those types of changes" as it wades through studies of what occurred, chooses how to remedy it, and secures a contract to do so.

"We need to be able to move quickly," Tremper explained. "We need to be able to adjust our electromagnetic posture in order to change what we're attempting to do extremely rapidly without sacrificing capabilities."

Additionally, redundancy is vital so that the US can continue functioning on another system if an EW strike successfully knocks out one, Tremper added.

Clark added that the United States needs to be much more inventive in its approach to developing new EW technology. It will not be sufficient to just upgrade legacy systems, he said; the US must develop new systems capable of significantly better resilience and speed.

He explained that this involves the incorporation of artificial intelligence and machine learning into next-generation systems to enable them to adapt more quickly. Increased use of digital engineering can also assist the military in modelling new equipment on a computer and ironing out any kinks before undergoing the time-consuming acquisition and testing process.

Clark noted that the Air Force's in-development Compass Call, the EC-37B, is a perfect illustration of how digital engineering is revolutionising the service's approach to developing new electromagnetic warfare capabilities.

Software developers and engineers are collaborating with Compass Call operators on the ground to devise novel methods of jamming adversary signals, Clark explained.

They added that Russia's invasion of Ukraine taught the US a great deal about the sophistication and reliability of Russian weapons as well as their forces' ability to carry out coordinated missions.

Tremper noted that it has demonstrated the critical nature of properly training individuals assigned to conduct electromagnetic warfare activities. Attempting to conduct EW while moving forward into the territory you are invading and not in a secure position complicates matters even more.

It's a very difficult challenge to solve without well-trained operators, "Tremper explained." Because these types of activities need a high degree of coordination and synchronisation, an inexperienced operator will have a more difficult time successfully executing them.

Tremper stated that the Pentagon anticipated a "much stronger" EW performance from Russia, but cautioned that this does not mean all of Russia's efforts have been in vain.

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