By Sally DeBoer

CIMSEC is just one of many voices in the discussion of international maritime security and naval affairs.  To enrich our content and expand our own horizons, we’ve developed content sharing relationships with similarly focused organizations.  Information Dissemination: The Intersection of Maritime Security and Strategic Communications consistently provides thought-provoking, meticulously researched, and deeply interesting analysis on naval affairs. On that note, CIMSEC is proud to announce an upcoming series featuring one of ID’s most prolific and interesting voices: Jon Solomon. 

In the coming months, CIMSEC will be crossposting selections from Jon’s portfolio, including his excellent three-part series 21st Century Maritime Operations Under Cyber-Electromagnetic Opposition, in which Jon deftly challenges conventional wisdom and popular understanding of Electronic Warfare (EW) and cyber-warfare as it relates to tomorrow’s conflicts.  In the series, Solomon explores the efficacy of judging a force network’s combat vitality by solely the number of nodes, the unique challenges of identifying and classifying potential targets, and considerations of network geometry/network degradation in times of combat.  Readers can look forward to enjoying Jon’s technical-but-understandable writing style and will likely come away with a broader, more nuanced understanding of the realm (and realities) of EW in modern conflict. This eye-opening series serves as an excellent primer for readers wishing to better grasp the possible practicalities of future high-end naval warfare.

Further, CIMSEC will also be re-publishing Jon’s engrossing series Deception and the Backfire Bomber: Re-examining the Late Cold War Struggle Between Soviet Maritime Reconnaissance and U.S. Navy Counter-targeting.  With a careful eye to detail and a reverent eye to history, Solomon discusses the most compelling aspects of the rarely-discussed (and still largely classified) relationship between U.S. EW assets and Soviet long-range maritime strike capabilities in the period between 1970 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.  Jon evaluates the evolution of Soviet reconnaissance support for Backfire forces (from pathfinders to overhead) and the U.S. Navy’s counter-targeting efficacy.  Further, the series explores possible deception tactics that may have been used by Backfires and concurrent counter-deception measures.  Current Russian strategies being what they are, Solomon’s analysis seems especially timely and relevant.

In addition to the above series, CIMSEC will include additional re-publications of Solomon’s other exemplary work.  We hope you, the readers, are as excited as we are for this timely, intriguing new series. Look for the ID’s Jon Solomon series in your inbox and featuring on the homepage in the coming weeks.

Sally DeBoer is an Associate Editor and the Book and Publication Review Coordinator for CIMSEC.  She can be reached at sally.l.deboer(at)gmail(dot)com.