Electromagnetic Warfare
Electronic warfare has come a long way from the early days of basic signal intelligence. As the digital global age depends on the digital infrastructure and digital connectivity, individuals as well as entities across each nation: its government, industries, organizations, and academia today increasingly depend on closely integrated, high-speed electronic systems. Now, when any weapon gives our opponents or enemies the ability to use the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum and its signals to deny us the ability to use these signals for our digital infrastructure, digital connectivity, and digital initiatives, it becomes a cause of great concern.
Since the electromagnetic threat scenarios seem to be real, there is no doubt that “electromagnetic warfare” (EW) is here. It seems that the world is already changing in many unforeseen ways and computer code, connected computers, and the internet have connected cyberspace to geospace and space. Today, irrespective of individuals and entities across NGIOA, we are living in a time of increasing uncertainty on many fronts. Amidst that understanding, each warfare, both existing as well as emerging, from cyberspace, geospace, and space (CGS) has become a survival necessity.
So, when electromagnetic warfare seems already on our doorsteps, it is important to evaluate how to meet the complex warfare challenges that are threatening the very progress, individuals, and entities across lands : its governments, industries, organizations, and academia have made in cyberspace, geospace, and space.
The Russian- Ukraine conflict unfolded the full spectrum of electronic warfare never seen before. Military technologies like satellites, UAVs, ISR equipment, Missiles, aircraft etc. rely on the wireless communication satellite broadband service which is connected to the Internet and involved the jamming of Navigation satellite signals on ground. You can imagine when your ability to fly and fire accurately are suddenly denied. The very foundation of precision strikes is made redundant though the jamming that takes place in the space and ground. Taking our lead in space tech, how far has Indian Armed Forces embraced such reality.
When the fiction becomes science today it breaks down the norms at such a fast pace that it becomes difficult to absorb. The dimensions of warfare that we are talking about is not far across the enemy lines and out of sight but in the outer space. It unfolded in full spectrum last month in Russian- Ukraine conflict to jam satellite broadband service which is connected to the Internet and involved the jamming of Navigation satellite signals on ground. You can imagine when your ability to fly and fire accurately are suddenly denied. The very foundation of precision strikes is made redundant though the jamming that takes place in the space and ground.
Modern wars will increasingly involve electronic warfare, particularly to shape the battlefield when conflicts begin. The ability of a nation to win a war is generally defined by its capability to integrate new technologies in its military and intelligence collection operations. With the scale of conflict going on between Russia & Ukraine, this modern-day battlefield has opened a new frontier for advanced intelligence & electronics warfare technologies.
With the increase in the Radiofrequency footprint and the spectrum utilisation, most of the modern military technologies like satellites, UAVs, ISR equipment, Missiles, aircraft etc. rely on the wireless communication means for the effective operations, and this has also enabled the high throughput information transfer leading to a wide scale penetration of the internet across the globe.
On one hand, these technologies have helped the world’s leading militaries to advance their attacking capabilities and use it as deterrence, on the other hand, it has become a new spy craft and technology warfare tool enabling the militaries to take on the enemy with greater efficiency and efficacy at the same time.
Russia being one of the most technologically advanced militaries across the globe, is leveraging its advanced electronic warfare capabilities to degrade the self-defence capabilities of Ukraine by jamming the GPS signals leading to wide-scale disruptions in the UAV flights and also to protect its own troops from GPS-guided missiles.
This portable jammer equipment installed on military trucks works by throwing out the overpowered electronic disturbance or Noise in the same frequency range of the target receiver, making reception impossible. While these jammers prove not to be effective in mountain regions, could play a huge role in causing mass scale signal disruptions in a flat urban landscape.
Russia has significantly increased its electronic warfare capabilities in the recent years, as per one of the reports by the Organization for Security and Cooperation, in April 2021 Ukraine SMM’s long-range unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight had experienced dual GPS signal interference, assessed as caused by jamming, which continued uninterrupted for the remainder of the flight. The aircraft completed an emergency landing in its 3rd landing attempt in a field about 600m north of its designated landing spot.
In another incident, after SpaceX shipped thousands of Starlink terminals to Ukraine in February this year to provide alternate internet infrastructure to Ukraine, Russia utilised its capabilities to jam SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellite signals that are beamed down to Ukraine as per the company’s founder Elon Musk, making SpaceX to release a software patch for its Starlink kits in order to bypass the jamming.
While this technology has its significance on the battlefield, it can also cause a large scale impact outside the battlefield leading to disruptions in logistics, crisis response, air travel and many other services relying on navigation satellites. Around 2 weeks after Russia began its attack, on March 9 Finnish national airline Finnair reported GPS issues in the flights passing close to the Baltic exclave of Kalinigrad, leading to the cancellation of flights between the capital Helsinki and the city of Savonlinna for almost a week.
Typically electromagnetic warfare involves the use of, and defense against, microwave and EMP weapons to destroy enemy electronics. It does not involve electronic warfare (EW), optical warfare, laser weapons, or cyber warfare. It’s often lumped into directed-energy weapons, but that description misses the mark because it includes laser weapons and laser targeting, which can confuse the issue. Future uses of electromagnetic warfare will be on land, in the air, in space, and perhaps even under the sea. It involves the same kind of energy as static electricity, which can give a stinging shock in dry weather, but it’s controlled and measured, and typically doesn’t leave explosive destruction and collateral damage behind like bombs, missiles, and bullets do.
Electromagnetic warfare emerging for high-energy electrical weapons that damage or destroy enemy electronics. There’s an emerging brand of waging war that uses electrical energy instead of bombs and bullets to attack an enemy’s means and will to continue the fight — electromagnetic warfare. This approach uses aimed electrical and magnetic energy to destroy or disable critical enemy electronics for navigation and guidance, computing, communications, displays, timing, sensors, and many other military applications.
Electromagnetic warfare differs from electronic warfare in that it seeks to destroy or damage electronics, rather than jam, spoof, or eavesdrop on electronic signals for communications or radar sensors. It differs from laser weapons in that electromagnetic weapons use electronic energy rather than optical energy.
EMS is at the heart of modern military operations and is the essential link between the land, air, naval, space, and even cyber domains. The electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) is “the range of all frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. The electromagnetic radiation consists of oscillating electric and magnetic fields characterized by frequency and wavelength.” This radiation has fascinating properties: it can be visible or invisible, move at speeds approaching that of light, cross certain obstacles or, on the contrary, bounce off them (thus indicating their presence), transport energy or data.
Since the end of the Cold War, Western armed forces, exploiting a comfortable technological lead, managed to achieve almost total electromagnetic supremacy. In other words, they have been able to use all their electromagnetic transmission and/or reception means without major constraints. They had real freedom of action in the field of frequencies during the whole duration and over all the geographical zones of the operation. This undisputed domination was notably decisive in the success of military operations in the Persian Gulf, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, and Mali.
Unfortunately, the increasing complexity and congestion of the electromagnetic environment (EME), as well as the emergence or return of competitors who have made great efforts regarding EMS capabilities, seem today to call into question Western domination in this area. Indeed, civilian applications are multiplying and the commercial stakes around EMS, such as 5G networks and internet of things (IoT), are constantly growing. In the military domain, hyper-connectivity and increasing digitization have also led to an exponential growth in frequency requirements. Moreover, during the two last decades, many competitors have caught up technologically and developed means of contesting our supremacy in EMS. This evolution concerns both near-peer competitors, such as Russia or China, and intermediate powers, such as Iran. Even insurgents and terrorist groups have benefited from the democratization of “low cost” EW equipment, most often based on dual-use technology.
A Complex and Congested Environment : The multiplication of civil and military systems using the electromagnetic spectrum leads to an increasingly congested environment and is the source of unintentional disturbances and a reduction of the operational margins of maneuver in the field of the EMS operations. This general interest in the exploitation of EMS has led to an increased densification of transmitting systems, particularly in the frequency bands between 500MHz and 10GHz. Some bands, such as the 2 to 4GHz band, are particularly congested with the development of technologies such as Bluetooth, Wifi, WiMax, 4G networks and tomorrow’s 5G. This issue will be much more complex than the frequency allocation as 5G applications are not exactly the same in all countries. Indeed, the standard identifies different frequency bands that can be used. Then, each country chooses which one will be used, taking into account its own constraints. For example, in France or the United States, 5G is deployed in thpe 3.5 GHz band while in China it is also deployed in the immediate vicinity of 5 GHz. In the future, these differences in frequency allocations could be an additional source of interference for the military EMS capabilities.
Conclusion
Electromagnetic warfare is undoubtedly becoming a major cause of concern, and the issue is likely to become even more prominent for entities across the globe in the coming years. We’re going to be hearing about electromagnetic warfare much more often in the future as these technologies are developed, mature, and are deployed into the field. Of course, the interference related to 5G could increase and be even more complex to manage, since military capabilities should also exploit this technology in many fields of application such as command and control (C2) and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) areas. Beyond the risk of interference, 5G-based military systems may be more vulnerable to cyber-attacks and espionage So far, most 5G equipment comes from China and it is difficult to control its security level. Specific measures will have to be taken to mitigate this risk, such as giving preference to Western suppliers or imposing stricter security rules on Chinese equipment.
Courtesy, Stephane Ricciardi, Major in the French Army, Manish Kumar Jha and Ankit Bhateja.
– Manimozhi Ilango
My Fatty Brain Cell 