Red Sea Topic Week

Evaluating the Naval Response to the Red Sea Crisis

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Red Sea Topic Week

By Colin Barnard

Though Alfred Thayer Mahan is famous for his advocacy of strong naval fleets to win decisive battles at sea, he saw the enduring purpose of navies as something much broader and not constrained to war: enabling and, if necessary, disrupting maritime trade. Even though Mahan could not have imagined autonomous weapons, the Houthis’ campaign against merchant shipping in the Red Sea would have been familiar to him. Whatever technology is used, however, maritime trade has been disrupted before; and, as before, the U.S. Navy and several of its allies are fighting to enable it, demonstrating the Navy’s enduring purpose for all to see. This analysis evaluates the naval response so far, from cooperating with merchant shipping, the cost effectiveness and vulnerabilities of using warships and missiles to counter drones, and the role of allies, to the potential implications for a future conflict with China and current efforts in defense innovation to prepare for it.

Cooperating with Merchant Shipping

Threats against merchant shipping are not new: pirates, German U-boats, and even other merchant ships have disrupted merchant shipping in the past. Navies, coast guards, and the international shipping community have long feared the potential for terrorists to exploit the vulnerability of merchant ships in one of the world’s many maritime chokepoints, of which the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea is one of the most critical. A terrorist group backed by Iran, the Houthis have exploited the geography of the Red Sea to their advantage, targeting shipping to disrupt trade with disproportionate impact in order to effect political change–i.e., hindering Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. Protecting shipping from such terrorism is a job for naval forces, but they must cooperate with merchant shipping in doing so, as they have in the past.

Enter Naval Cooperation and Guidance for Shipping (NCAGS). An important NATO doctrine, NCAGS provides NATO navies with the tools to cooperate and guide merchant shipping during crisis and conflict. Its shortfalls arise because of the voluntary nature of this relationship. Though shipping can never be guaranteed full protection–especially without troops on the ground to mitigate land-based threats–navies must provide value to the shipping industry if it is to trust and rely on them for what protection they can provide. While the NCAGS doctrine has been practiced by NATO navies for decades, it does not seem to have worked as designed in the Red Sea. Early in the crisis, Reuters reported that shipping was “in the dark” on U.S. and allied naval efforts to counter Houthi attacks. The always candid John Konrad, founder and CEO of gCaptain, took to Twitter to highlight the perils of this apparent disconnect.

While communication between the NCAGS enterprise and shipping was likely better than publicly available information suggests, as Nathan Strang claimed, it would not be unreasonable to suggest the need for a closer relationship between the two. If they are not already, industry liaison officers could be used to better link the U.S. Navy and shipping, and foreign area officers could help allies get on the same page. Public affairs officers also have a role to play. If the NCAGS enterprise was doing its job per Strang, but efforts were difficult to surmise because of classification, carefully crafted news releases about these efforts could have helped put shipping at ease. Depending on NATO’s role in such a crisis, the NATO Shipping Center, NATO’s single point of contact for the international shipping community, would be the best link between the two. NATO has come to aid of merchant shipping before, even when the threat was outside its area of responsibility; and crises like this would help shore up its relationship with shipping in the event of crises or conflict closer to home.

Cost Effectiveness and Vulnerabilities: Destroyer vs. Drones

At the same time naval forces are demonstrating their enduring purpose in the Red Sea, outsiders are questioning the sustainability of manned, multi-billion warships facing off against much cheaper, unmanned drones. The missiles used to shoot down these drones cost upwards of $4 million, while the drones themselves cost only hundreds of thousands. But the issue of cost effectiveness in asymmetric warfare is not new. In the land campaigns of the Global War on Terror, for example, costly munitions were expended in the targeting of much less costly targets. That cost effectiveness is suddenly an issue for public discussion during a maritime campaign is yet another example of seablindness, but the concern is reasonable. Unmanned and easy to replicate, drones can be used to exhaust more expensive naval munitions before attacking warships directly without putting the drone operator at risk. The discussion of cost effectiveness has, therefore, extended to the vulnerability of warships.

This vulnerability was the subject of a recent article by Brandon Weichert, who bemoaned the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer as “a great navy warship past its prime.” Current and former naval officers were quick to criticize the article, which uses the 2000 attack on USS Cole as its prime example of such vulnerability but says nothing about weapon posture or layered defense (the Cole was moored in Yemen for refueling and unready when the attack occurred). While warship vulnerability against drones is concerning, all of history’s advances in weapon technology elicited similar concern. From the longbow and machine gun to the submarine and nuclear bomb, these advances created asymmetry even among peers, and only democratization of these technologies restored the balance. In the meantime, it should be obvious that the best course of action, as the United States (and now UK, too) is following, is to target bases and operators before drones become a threat–though it is doubtful that such strikes alone will be enough to make a difference.

While the Houthi’s use of autonomous systems is the latest example of their democratization, the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was the first indication of such democratization on a mass scale, as well as the first instance of these systems being a decisive factor in war. Prior to the 2020 conflict, autonomous systems—drones—were the purview of major powers with the money to procure and employ them. In Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan employed them as a force of their own, devastating Armenian air defenses, tanks, artillery, and supply lines without putting traditional aircraft or their pilots in harm’s way. Similarly, in the Russo-Ukrainian war, Ukrainian forces have all but stopped the Russian Navy in the Black Sea, using drones to disrupt and in some cases destroy Russian warships. As John Antal warned in his detailed analysis of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, autonomous systems, now employed by state and non-state actors alike, are here to stay. 

Absent Allies and Coalitions of the Willing

Due to the impact of Houthi attacks on world trade, the U.S. and several of its allies formed a coalition of the willing to respond to the crisis. Like the international response to piracy in the Horn of Africa, international naval cooperation has become a rule rather than an exception in the post-Cold War era. Globalization has necessitated this cooperation, increasing the impact of the threats to, and mitigations of maritime security relative to more traditional threats. But unlike the response to piracy, which saw NATO, the EU, and even China, India, and Russia deploy forces to protect maritime trade, NATO is notably absent from this crisis. The Israel-Hamas conflict has divided many allies on their response to the Houthi threat, even if all are affected by the disruption of merchant shipping in the Red Sea. NATO has the means to make a difference in this crisis, but politics as usual are in the way.

As of this writing, 14 states are supporting the U.S.-led Operation Prosperity Guardian. Of these 14, only eight are NATO members–the United States included. The EU’s Operation Aspides has even fewer supporters, though they include some of the NATO members absent from Prosperity Guardian. Of course, not all states supporting Prosperity Guardian are contributing warships; but the presence of staff officers, as Norway is contributing, will enhance cooperation. One of the merchant ships attacked early on in this crisis was Norwegian-flagged, incentivizing this contribution, but the general threat posed to freedom of navigation in the Red Sea should be incentive enough for all capable states to contribute. As should be obvious even to the seablind, the impact of supply chain disruption as seen during COVID, the grounding of the Ever Given, and, more recently, the destruction of the Francis Scott Key bridge, necessitates their contribution.

Whether or not it ultimately contributes to the crisis response, NATO must once again confront the challenge of deterring and defending against its perennial foe, Russia, while also contributing to maritime security. Worrisomely, NATO’s Allied Maritime Strategy is out-of-date. Its latest Strategic Concept, released in 2022, refocuses on Russia while maintaining NATO’s role as a maritime security actor; but it poorly articulates the maritime dimensions of NATO’s security environment. NATO is, first and foremost, a maritime alliance, and it needs a maritime strategy to guide its force structure and operational concepts. Such a strategy is more important considering the potential for a future conflict with China. If the U.S. Navy and potentially other NATO navies must surge to the Pacific, alliance buy-in will be needed to manage the varying threats to maritime security in and near NATO’s area of responsibility.

Implications for a Future Conflict with China 

As the U.S. Navy and coalition members stand off against Houthi drones (and missiles) in the Red Sea, the implications for future conflict are worth examining. As in the Russo-Ukrainian War, drones have reduced asymmetry in this crisis; and they were decisive in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Clearly, such technology must be at the forefront of the U.S. Navy’s planning for a future conflict with China, which has the industrial capacity to produce drones in far greater quantities than so far exhibited. Updates to strategy and the fleet design it informs need to be quick, as warships, submarines, aircraft, and their integration with this technology cannot happen overnight. The new U.S. Navy Chief of Naval Operations, Lisa Franchetti, called this state of affairs a “1930s moment.” In the 30s, the U.S. Navy was too small and insufficiently resourced for the coming Second World War, and the U.S. Navy is not much different today (shipbuilding delays being one of the most troubling examples).

While the U.S. Navy’s strategy prior to the Second World War was centered on battleships, as Franchetti explained, it shifted from this platform-centric strategy to one integrating naval forces above and below the sea to defeat the Nazis and Imperial Japan. The next shift in strategy is clearly toward autonomy. The Navy is already making significant efforts to this end. The Replicator Initiative, focused on commercially sourcing and mass producing drones to take on China, is the overarching example of these efforts. The Navy’s unmanned  Task Force 59 in the Middle East is the prime example of the Navy’s role at the pointy end of this strategy, developing and implementing its tactics. Likewise, other branches, especially the U.S. Marine Corps, are making efforts to better design themselves for next generation warfare. How exactly this next generation warfare will look is still unclear, but drones are likely to be used to counter drones. The era of drone-on-drone warfare is near.

One of the biggest lessons to be learned from the drone warfare experienced so far is offense-defense balance. Drones add to an already saturated battle space, increasing the burden on layered defenses. Leveraging emerging technology to improve offensive capabilities is critical, but defensive capabilities must be given corresponding weight. Importantly, however, neither offensive nor defensive capabilities need to be wholly reliant on emerging technology; “old ways” may prove to be more effective than imagined, as they were for Lieutenant General Van Riper in the infamous Millennium Challenge. The novel 2034, co-authored by retired Admiral James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman, imagines how these old ways might make the difference in a conflict with China, should new technology be defeated. New technology might win some wars and mitigate certain crises; where it is not the deciding factor, however, old ways—or some combination of the old and new, as is currently on display in Ukraine—may be.

Conclusion

Navies are demonstrating their enduring purpose in the Red Sea Crisis, but their response has been far from perfect. The seemingly strained relationship between navies and merchant shipping evident early in the crisis is concerning, but establishing better relationships between the two using liaison officers and the NATO Shipping Center–if NATO involves itself—could help in the future. The cost-effectiveness and vulnerabilities of the naval response are also concerning, as is the absence of certain allies. Regardless, the drone technology at the center of this crisis is here to stay, and the implications for a future conflict are the most concerning of all. Defense innovation efforts are already underway to prepare for such a conflict, but over reliance on emerging technology to go on offense, without simultaneously preparing for defense, could be fatal. Going forward, navies are at the center of these challenges, especially war with China. Thankfully, the Red Sea Crisis could prove their perfect test.

Colin Barnard is a PhD candidate at King’s College London and foreign area officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, currently assigned to a unit supporting U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. Sixth Fleet in Naples, Italy. He was formerly on active duty for ten years, during which he supported U.S. and NATO operations across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. He has previously written for CIMSEC and the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings. The views expressed in this publication are the author’s and do not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of Defense or U.S. Navy.

Featured Image: The British-registered cargo ship Rubymar sinking, after it was targeted by Yemen’s Houthi forces in international waters in the Red Sea, on March 3, 2024, in the Red Sea. (Photo by Yemeni Al-Joumhouriah TV)

Red Sea Topic Week

Red Sea Topic Week Kicks Off on CIMSEC

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By Dmitry Filipoff

For the next two weeks, CIMSEC will be featuring analysis submitted in response to our call for articles on the crisis in the Red Sea.

The Red Sea has become arguably the most hotly contested maritime region in the world. A vital maritime chokepoint is being fought over by a coalition of naval powers and a heavily armed Iranian proxy group, the Houthis. These events offer useful lessons on the exercise of naval power, as well as the crisis decision-making of militaries, commercial firms, and nation-states.

Below are the articles and authors that will feature during the topic week. This list will be updated further submissions as the topic week unfolds.

“Evaluating the Naval Response to the Red Sea Crisis,” by Colin Barnard

“Panda Express: A Proposed Convoy Operation in the Red Sea,” by Clay Robinson

“Naval Interoperability and NATO’s Naval Presence: Lessons from the Red Sea,” by CDR Augusto Conte, Spanish Navy, and Gonzalo Vázquez

“Basing U.S. Ships in Nearby Waters to Counter Threats in the Red Sea,” by Michael D. Purzycki

“The Strategic Abuse of Maritime Security in the Red Sea,” by Alexandru Cristian Hudișteanu

“China’s Calculated Inaction in the Red Sea Crisis,” by David Scott

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at Content@cimsec.org.

Featured Image: The Red Sea as seen from space. (NASA photo)

Podcast

Sea Control 514 – Explaining Ethiopia’s Port Deal with Samir Bhattacharya

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By Jared Samuelson

ORF’s Samir Bhattacharya joins the program to explain the details of Ethiopia’s recent port deal with Somaliland and its geopolitical impact. Samir Bhattacharya is an Associate Fellow at ORF where he works on geopolitics with particular reference to Africa in the changing global order.

Download Sea Control 514 – Explaining Ethiopia’s Port Deal with Samir Bhattacharya

Links

1. “Understanding Ethiopia’s port deal with Somaliland and its geopolitical implications,” by Samir Bhattacharya, ORF Online, January 25, 2024. 

Jared Samuelson is Co-Host and Executive Producer of the Sea Control podcast. Contact him at Seacontrol@cimsec.org.

This episode was edited and produced by William McQuiston.

Interviews

Fighting in the Spectrum with Navy and Marine Corps Electronic Warfare Aircraft

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By Dmitry Filipoff

Tom Wildenberg spoke with CIMSEC about his new book, Fighting in the Electromagnetic Spectrum – U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Electronic Warfare Aircraft, Operations, and Equipment. In this book, Wilbenberg traces the development of naval airborne electronic warfare back through WWII, and captures the various innovations, tactics, and controversies of these unique platforms and capabilities. 

In this conversation, Wildenberg discusses the value of electronic warfare capability, deadly shootdown incidents involving electronic reconnaissance aircraft, and how the Joint Force came to rely so heavily on the Navy for airborne EW.

Electronic warfare is an especially complex and technical form of capability. Broadly speaking, how can we understand the value of EW capability and its various applications?

Electronic Warfare (EW) can be either active or passive. Passive EW involves signal intelligence (SIGINT), also known as communications intelligence (COMINT), and electronic intelligence (ELINT). The former allows one to listen in on the enemy’s communications, which can be an important intelligence asset. The latter is used to collect data on the performance characteristics of the enemy’s electronic devices, such as radar, and is also used to establish the enemy’s electronic order of battle.

There are two primary methods of active EW. Jamming is the one that most people are familiar with. It uses high-power electromagnetic energy to disrupt or blind the enemy’s radars, or to prevent the use of communication by filling his communication channels with noise. More sophisticated methods are used to spoof, capture, or insert false information into the enemy’s radars (search or fire control) or communication systems, disrupting their use or effectiveness.

Aerial electronic warfare missions tend to fall into two broad categories – tactical support to operational forces and national-level intelligence collection missions. How can we characterize these two mission areas, and how did they create tensions over limited EW assets?

Strategic SIGINT and ELINT missions are conducted under the auspices of the National Security Agency, which authorizes, plans, and funds these missions, which are conducted using aircraft and personnel from highly secret Air Force and Navy units that are specially established for this purpose. Since these highly secret missions are funded via the so-called “Black Budget,” their funds are separate from the operating forces that employ EW on the tactical level.

During past conflicts, such as the war in Vietnam, the limited distribution of intelligence gathered by the NSA caused conflicts with both the local and theater commanders who believed that withholding this information was detrimental to in-theater operations.

The Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm both featured numerous U.S. aircraft battling complex integrated air defense systems. How did electronic warfare feature in these air campaigns? 

The United States military was unprepared when the North Vietnamese began fielding their Russian-supplied SA-2 anti-aircraft missiles. Quick responses by industry, Air Force, and Navy EW specialists enabled both services to field effective countermeasures and tactics that were generally effective in defeating the anti-aircraft missiles. However, the North Vietnamese were constantly developing methods to defeat the American countermeasures, requiring constant re-adjustment by American forces. To avoid these missiles, U.S. aircraft were required to fly at low altitudes during the approach and egress from their target areas, subjecting them to the danger of intense gunfire from hundreds of anti-aircraft weapons. The vast majority of U.S. aircraft losses in Vietnam were downed by these easily deployed weapons.

A reconnaissance photo of a SAM site in North Vietnam. (Official USAF photo released by DoD, August 16, 1965.)

One significant revolution in military affairs that emerged from the air war over Vietnam was the need to suppress enemy air defenses (SEAD) and the creation of units and tactics designed specifically for this purpose. This concept was used very effectively during Operation Desert Storm to virtually eliminate Iraq’s air defense system.

You note that virtually all electronic warfare aircraft in the U.S. military were a product of reconfigured airframe designs. You highlight the EA-6B Prowler as a possible exception. What was unique about this aircraft and how potent was its EW capability? 

The origins of the EA-6B Prowler can be traced to the Marine Corps requirement to replace its aging F3D-2Q Skynight for a carrier-capable aircraft filling the EW attack mission. The Marine Corps provided funding to modify one of the original A-6A Intruders for this purpose. The success of Grumman’s protype led to a production contract for 12 two-seat EA-6A carrier-based EW aircraft.

Towards the end of 1965, as the Marines were beginning to deploy the EA-6A, the Navy needed to replace its aging EKA-3Bs and issued a requirement for a carrier aircraft having a state-of-the art countermeasures suite to support tactical strike aircraft by denying the enemy (the North Vietnamese) the effective use of their defenses and radio communications. Grumman was already at work on an improved version of the EA-6A based around the ALQ-99 tactical jamming system then under development. Since the new ALQ-99 system could not be handled by one electronic countermeasures operator (ECMO), the crew was increased to four – a pilot and three ECMOs.

The EA-6B as originally delivered had an extremely comprehensive electronic warfare suite (internally mounted) that included four defensive jammers, three offensive tactical jammers (covering three radar bands), an integration receiver, and a surveillance system. In addition, the aircraft had seven external stores stations to hold a 300-gallon fuel tank, two more tactical jammers, and up to four weapons.

A U.S. Navy EA-6B Prowler is directed to the catapult on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) as the ship conducts flight operations in the Gulf of Oman on Aug. 28, 2013. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Raul Moreno)

Electronic intelligence missions can be risky, even if there is no outright conflict. What are some of the more notable close calls and shootdown incidents that happened in peacetime and how did they influence subsequent operations? 

During the first decade of the Cold War, the Joint Chiefs of Staff authorized the Special Electronic Search Project utilizing personnel from the Naval Security Group, who specialized in ELINT and cryptology, to conduct “ferret” missions around the Soviet Union and communist states. Theses missions were extremely hazardous for the Navy crews flying them. Between December 1950 and June 1959, 18 Navy planes were attacked. Six were shot down or forced to ditch, killing and wounding a number of Navy personnel.

In November 1968, the Navy began conducting scheduled ELINT missions off the coast of North Korea using piston engine EC-121Ms that had been derived from the Lockheed Constellation. On April 15, 1969, an EC-121M using the call sign Deep Sea 129 was flying on a routine mission over the northwest corner of the Sea of Japan when it was intercepted and shot down by two North Korean MiG-21s – despite the fact the Air Force radars in Korea had detected two North Korean MiGs flying toward the unarmed EC-121M. The U.S. Air Force Security Service listening post at Osan, South Korea, which was eavesdropping on North Korean voice and Morse air defense radio traffic, was also tracking the path of the EC-121M, as well as the intercept course of the North Korean fighters. The naval security group listening post at Kamiseya in Japan was also intercepting Soviet PVO radar tracking of the EC-121M. Both of these sources provided NSA with real-time information about the flight path of Deep Sea 129 and the MiGs attempting to intercept, but did not provide sufficient warning to Deep Sea 129’s crew.

In the weeks following the shootdown, the command-and-control aspect of the EC-121M incident was examined by two official executive office study groups. One was a CINCPAC board of evaluation, the other a JCS ad hoc fact-finding group. The consensus of these studies was the need to improve command and control communications during such missions and that protection for reconnaissance flights into sensitive areas required more coordination between the SIGINT community and the Air Force operational commands that had protective responsibility. A specific recommendation called for integrating SIGINT information with operational information at command-and-control centers where decisions could be made based on all-source information. A naval board of inquiry into the loss of the EC-121M was also convened. One of the recommendations made by this board was for the procurement of higher-performance aircraft to replace the obsolete EC-121M, leading to the development and procurement of the EP-3B ARIES.

Regardless of the danger faced by the crews flying electronic reconnaissance missions, they continued to be flown and were frequently harassed. On April 1, 2001, a Chinese F-8 on one of these harassing missions accidently struck an EP-3E ARIES flying off the coast of China, forcing the severely damaged aircraft to land on China’s Hainan Island. Although the crew used the short time before landing to destroy as much of the sensitive equipment as possible, what information obtained by the Chinese was never revealed. The crew was eventually released after the U.S. government delivered a letter “expressing sorrow,” but not apologizing for the incident.

USN EC-121, BuNo 135749, the aircraft involved in the incident. (U.S. Navy photo)

Despite EW’s importance, the Navy found itself in the position of being the sole provider of aerial electronic warfare capability to the joint force. How did this situation arise and how did it result in unconventional arrangements for these high-demand assets? 

In November 1994, recommendations made by the congressionally-mandated Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces, established to eliminate redundancy and waste in DOD, led to increased funding for the EA-6B Prowler and a cut in funding for the Air Force’s EF-111A. This effectively established the Prowler as the sole source of Joint Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (JSEAD) support.

A number of factors contributed to the decision to retire the EF-111A in favor of the EA-6B. First and foremost was the issue of operating expenses. Although the EF-111s made up nine percent of the aircraft in the Air Force’s Tactical Air Command, they consumed 25 percent of the command’s maintenance budget. While both aircraft needed new ECM equipment to counter the next generation of SAM systems, the EA-6B’s ICAP-II weapons system had a better tactical jamming capability. The EA-6B’s four-man crew provided additional operational advantages over the EF-111A’s two-man crew. The EA-6B was also equipped to fire the AGM-88 HARM, which the EF-111A was not. Lastly, and not insignificantly, the Air Force was promoting a concept that stealth aircraft required no outside electronic warfare support to perform their mission.

April 24 1985 – A U.S. Air Force EF-111A Raven aircraft during Theater Force Employment Exercise IV. (Photo via U.S. National Archives)

After the EF-111As were retired, the EA-6B became the Joint Force’s only airborne tactical jamming platform. To support the JSEAD mission, the Navy created non-carrier based expeditionary squadrons that deployed to overseas bases to support U.S. land-based air assets.

A modern high-end conflict is expected to feature a heavily contested electromagnetic spectrum. What are some key lessons from the history of electronic warfare that can inform preparations for modern high-end combat? 

Although electronic warfare has played an important role in every major aerial campaign since World War II began, interest in its continued support and development has often waned during the peaceful interlude that inevitably follows such conflicts. This phenomenon can be attributed to a number of factors concerning the nature of electronic warfare. First is the secrecy surrounding its operations and equipment, which limits the dissemination of EW information to the public and within the military itself. Since the mission of such aircraft is to collect information or suppress enemy air defenses, it lacks the glamour associated with missions flown by attacking aircraft. This discrepancy is reflected in the attitude and elan of the pilots in the attack community who have great influence over what type of aircraft need to be procured or developed. In the past as budgets tightened, the leadership within the aviation community preferred to spend their limited resources on obtaining more fighter, bomber, or attack aircraft, only to discover during the next major conflict that it had to rely on a limited number of somewhat obsolete EW assets to support its mission objectives.

This attitude is no longer as prominent, as evidenced by the latest EW suites being developed for the F-35 and the newest versions of the F-18. The reasons for this are twofold. First is how air power in today’s military operations has to overcome the proliferation of sophisticated air defense systems and enemy fighters armed with air-to-air missiles, which can only be overcome via robust SEAD capability. This concept is well-understood within the aviation community and the upper echelons of the U.S. military. Second, are the extraordinary advances in software and digitization that have enabled the development of state-of the-art EW suites that are lighter and smaller than legacy systems. These new systems are also engineered for autonomous operation. Autonomous operation eliminates the need for additional crew members, and the size and weight reductions allow very sophisticated EW suites to be installed in the latest generation of single-seat fighters without affecting aircraft performance. Whether such systems eliminate the need for dedicated EW attack aircraft remains to be seen.

Thomas Wildenberg is an award-winning scholar with special interests in aviators, naval aviation, and technological innovation in the military. He is the author of a number of books on a variety on naval topics, as well as biographies of Joseph Mason Reeves, Billy Mitchell, and Charles Stark Draper.

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at Content@cimsec.org.

Featured Image: A Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler departs after receiving fuel from a U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker. (Staff Sgt. Trevor T. McBride/Air Force Photo)

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.