Will cyberwarriors no longer need the Internet?

The answer might be yes—in the future. For now, warfighters can stealthily wipe out an adversary and cause no physical destruction, thanks to electronic warfare (EW). EW has emerged as a warfighting domain where covert adversaries battle for the advantage. It is a powerful tool in the U.S. military’s arsenal that could prove a critical asset to win conflicts and become the weapon of choice for warfare in general. And technological improvements on the horizon could provide capabilities once reserved for science-fiction movies.

Only those who fully comprehend EW’s capabilities will control the battlespace of the future.

EW’s use of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) to attack or impede an enemy is critical to the success of modern-day warfighting. First, understanding how EW manipulates the EMS requires a bit of freshman physics: Multiple frequencies and wavelengths make up the spectrum, which includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays. As frequencies increase, wavelengths decrease, which means the lowest frequency has the longest wavelength and travels the farthest distance. Radio waves are the longest wavelengths and gamma rays are the shortest, with all wavelengths emitting electromagnetic radiation. The radio waves travel at the speed of light, or 186,000 miles per second, and EW can manipulate selected groups.

Comprehending the EMS is difficult. Understanding how the military can use EW to influence the EMS is mind-boggling. But grasping the characteristics of the different waves, specialists can develop EW techniques and tactics that manipulate these emissions.

The inherent bewildering nature of EW has only worsened as U.S. Defense Department leaders have chipped away at funding, stymieing in-depth research during the critical period in which the military transitioned from an analog to a digital world. Now, as funding becomes even more scarce, the dollars tend to go toward tangible weapon systems that are better understood, with capabilities that can be easily explained.

Because leaders have neglected EW during fiscal hardships, some of the services have defunded EW programs. “We have lost the electromagnetic spectrum,” Alan Shaffer, former assistant defense secretary for research and engineering, announced a year ago. The defense system might have put the electromagnetic spectrum on the back burner, but the community never lost it.

The emergence of the new cyber age means funding for cutting-edge EW development is more important than ever. Enhancements in the EW domain have the potential to play a vital role in developing cybersecurity responses.

Of course, cyber and EW both depend on the EMS for their existence, but how they rely on the finite resource varies greatly. Cyber uses the EMS to get to its target, while EW manipulates the EMS to create desired effects.

Developments in this technology might even provide a way for cyberwarriors to operate outside of cyberspace. In the future, EW platforms might deliver software code to a threat system by means of electronic attack rather than via the Internet. Instead of jamming radar, an EW platform would embed software code using electromagnetic radiation, thus making EW a transportation vehicle for cyber.

Although some experts assert that EW is changing, it is not. The hyperbole of having lost the EMS is just that—an exaggeration. What has changed is that the community is more aware of EW’s potential. But broadening understanding of EW is difficult when experts constantly change the nomenclature. EW has been called spectrum warfare, radioelectronic warfare, cyber electromagnetic activities, electromagnetic maneuver warfare and electronic maneuver warfare, just to name a few. Varying titles only add to the confusion, and the community needs to get back to basics to foster a common understanding of EW: a capability that manipulates electromagnetic waves to create a desired outcome.

Unlike the physical limitations associated with bombs, bullets and missiles, EW can take out a target without physically destroying it and simultaneously retrieve information from an enemy.

Warfighters use EW for different scenarios, such as responding with a “hard kill,” an approach that permanently disables a threat, or a “soft kill,” which has temporary effects. Improvements to this critical resource mean that one day, aircraft manufacturers could design planes to respond more directly to threats, for example, rather than worry about limitations imposed by stealth design requirements. EW emissions transmitted around an aircraft would either absorb or modify the threat, enhancing an aircraft’s stealth capability. Other adaptations include using EW as a nonlethal weapon, which some experts consider to be an ideal approach for counter-piracy operations or protection of U.S. embassies worldwide. The versatile capability can destroy, confuse, mimic, silence and camouflage.

Think of EW without limitations. Think effects, not objects. Could using EW result in battles being won without using live munitions? Could EW give the United States an advantage over any adversary? Could warriors use EW against a threat in ways not yet imagined? To answer these questions, experts must first understand the nature of the threats and their relationships to the EMS, and then use EW to defeat them.

To chart a successful course in this still-unmapped domain, experts in the field can borrow from teachings of the not-too-distant past. One can look to 1999’s Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America, in which two Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) colonels broke down traditional methods of viewing war to provide atypical perspectives. The authors point out how a small, militarily inferior country can subdue a greater power by using imaginative strategies and tactics.

“The battlefield is next to you, and the enemy is on the network, and the information war is the war where the computer is used to obtain or destroy information,” penned PLA air force officers Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. “Technological progress has given us the means to strike at the enemy’s nerve center directly without harming other things, giving us numerous new options for achieving victory, and all these make people believe that the best way to achieve victory is to control, not to kill.”

The future holds great potential for EW and even greater potential for those who understand its powers.

Jim Loerch retired from the U.S. Navy as a commander after serving for 24 years. He now works for Raytheon as an engineering manager on the Next-Generation Jammer program. The views expressed are his alone and do not represent the views of the Defense Department or Raytheon.

An airman from the 41st Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron stands next to an EC-130H Compass Call aircraft in September 2014 at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. The squadron provides counter-communications electronic attack capabilities.