Mark Pomerleau
The Air Force is moving away from a platform-centric view of electronic warfare to more of a system-of-systems approach as it revamps its EW arsenal.
The service has been a platform-centric organization historically — meaning it has relied on systems such as aircraft to perform both its mission and contribution to the joint force — but the modern electromagnetic spectrum environment and threat landscape are demanding a new paradigm.
“Most of our electronic warfare programs are platform centric, so there wasn’t a unifying focus on this area as a whole. My own experience suggested that this is a historically neglected area that can have oversized impact, but doesn’t compete well in our internal budget battles relative to other priorities,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said last week at AFA’s Air, Space and Cyber conference.
The Air Force — much like the rest of the U.S. military — has been on a multi-year journey to modernize its outlook on electronic warfare, with officials acknowledging the airborne electronic attack mission for years was driven primarily by the Navy. Similar to other services, at the end of the Cold War it divested in many of its advanced capabilities, such as the venerable EF-111A Raven. Now, the Air Force has set off on a journey to reinvigorate its EW approach and capabilities.
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