30 July-5 August 2016
ARMY
Brown: Army eyes ‘multidomain battle’ doctrine
Inside Defense, 29 July 16, Courtney McBride
The Army is developing a new doctrine of multidomain battle, which has the potential to be as transformative as the AirLand Battle doctrine developed in the 1980s, according to the commander of U.S. Army Pacific. The effort dovetails with the Army Operating Concept, which centers on the problem statement, “win in a complex world.” Gen. Robert Brown told Inside the Army July 28 that in order to address the challenges of such an environment, the service aims to capitalize on the joint force’s ability to operate in multiple domains. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley is crafting the service’s capstone doctrine, which incorporates multidomain battle and cross-domain fires, as well as joint combined arms maneuver. This involves “moving to a position of relative advantage against the enemy, and doing that with joint forces,” Brown said. “Because if you do it one domain at a time, you’re moving to a position of relative advantage maneuvering. Most enemies can handle that one domain at a time.
Blog: Russia Employs Full Range of Information Warfare Capabilities
Signal Magazine, 2 Aug 16, George I. Seffers
Failure is not an option in the cyber realm. The Russian Federation Forces are using a wide array of cyber and electronic warfare capabilities unlike anything U.S. forces have faced in the past 16 years. Russia uses its sophisticated capabilities to detect, locate and eliminate enemy forces, according to Maj. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, USA, commander, U.S. Army Center of Excellence. Gen. Fogarty made the comments as the first speaker for AFCEA’s TechNet Augusta conference, Cyber in the Combined Arms Fight, taking place in Augusta, Georgia, August 2-4.
Russia’s Plausible Deniability Practice May Spread
Signal Magazine, 2 Aug 16, George I. Seffers
The communist country’s electronic warfare and cyber capabilities pose challenges. “What we’ve observed them do is employ the full-range of information warfare capabilities to effectively find and fix their opponents. And then they finish them with long-range fires and combined arms maneuvers.” Maj. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, commander, U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence. U.S. officials within the intelligence community and elsewhere fear that other potential adversaries might learn a few lessons from Russia’s recent provocative actions, according to Maj. Gen. Bruce Crawford, USA, who commands the Army’s Communications-Electronics Command.
4 takeaways from TechNet, Day 1
C4ISR & Networks, 3 Aug 16, Mark Pomerleau
Russia is in America’s crosshairs: Maj. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, commanding general of the Army Cyber Center of Excellence, said the U.S. has observed Russia employ the full range of information warfare capabilities to effectively find and fix their opponents. While traditional yardsticks of power include attack helicopters, bombers, artillery, armored vehicles and special operations forces, Fogarty said, information warfare capabilities employed by Russia include communication intelligence, electronic intelligence, collection analysis, geolocation, social media scraping, human intelligence, geospatial intelligence and social media exploitation, all of which help Russia find their targets. Russia fixes adversaries with sophisticated electronic warfare and cyberattacks without being physically on target by jamming communications to disrupt the communications so friendly forces don’t know where their other friendly assets are located to call for reinforcements or medevac.
Army Acquisition Chief: Ground Combat Technology a Key Piece of Third Offset Strategy
National Defense Technology Magazine, 3 Aug 16, Stew Magnuson
The Defense Department’s push to develop leap ahead technology known as the “third offset strategy” must include ground forces, an Army official said Aug. 3. The third offset strategy calls for the development of cutting edge technologies in various fields that will give the services battlefield advantages. Many of the technologies surrounding the new push involve anti-access, area denial scenarios, which lend themselves to Air Force and Navy programs.
Observance focuses on operations security
The Redstone Rocket, 29 Jul 16, Kari Hawkins
Operations security is not a lone wolf enterprise. It takes all government military, civilian and contractor employees to ensure operations security is a top priority during everyday office activities, said George Huley, the program manager for the Army’s OPSEC program. “We all have roles in OPSEC,” he said. “It doesn’t belong to any one organization or to the Army’s new Cyber Directorate or Army OPSEC. It’s a responsibility we all have to shoulder.”
U.S. Army Materiel Command Seeks Greater Role in Cyber
Signal Magazine 4 Aug 16, George I. Seffers
Service officials stress the search for novel technological solutions. “We need a network environment where cybersecurity and cyber situational awareness is, in real time, capable of automated response, reacting at machine speed, self-diagnosing and self-healing.” Gen. Dennis Via, USA, commander, Army Materiel Command. Officials with the Army’s Materiel Command (AMC) have initiated discussions with Army Cyber Command officials to see if the command can play a greater role in the cyber arena, according to Gen. Dennis Via, USA, AMC commander. Gen. Via told the AFCEA TechNet Augusta audience the AMC has “approached Army Cyber Command” about the possibility of “opportunities for the future.”
What’s coming up the pipe for PEO C3T?
C4ISR & Networks, 5 Aug 16, Mark Pomerleau
Officials from the Army Program Executive Office Command Control Communications-Tactical provided members of industry at TechNet Augusta an overview of a few upcoming projects. Jack Clawson, chief of network integration, described projects and enhancements coming within the 2017 and 2018 time frame: The Mobile User Objective System, or MUOS, capability will come online in the near future. The Navy recently launched the fifth satellite in the constellation, which is Navy-owned but jointly shared. For the Army, Clawson said this will provide beyond-line-of-sight voice and limited data capability. “So we know that the network is only as good as the conditions which it’s under, so you have distance limitations, you have terrain, you have EW [electronic warfare] effects, so as we start getting feedback … from other user entities, that’s where we start looking at: OK, where do we need to fill those gaps? And MUOS is one of those gaps to get us beyond-line-of-sight capability down through the dismount force,” he said.
JOINT
Directed Energy Weapons Gaining Acceptance Across U.S. Military
National Defense Magazine, 1 Aug 16, Yasmin Tadjdeh
No longer the stuff of science fiction, laser technology is progressing rapidly. Throughout the services, officials are banking on new directed energy weapon systems, which promise to offer the military precision strike at a low cost for both defensive and offensive missions. At Special Operations Command, its program executive office for rotary wing is working alongside the Army’s program manager for Apache attack helicopters to test a directed energy weapon on an Apache this summer. “There is absolutely a niche I believe for use of directed energy weapons,” said Col. John Vannoy, SOCOM’s program manager for rotary wing. “The lens we are looking at this through right now is: ‘Is it feasible to do this?’ We’re not at the point where we’ve laid out a business case to advance it.”
US Marine Corps Intrepid Tiger II rotary-wing EW pod goes operational
Jane’s Defense Weekly, 29 Jul 16, Richard Scott
The USMC’s new AN/ALQ-231 Intrepid Tiger II airborne communications-band electronic attack pod has begun flight operations. A UH-1Y Venom from VMM-64 (Reinforced) performed a first sortie with the equipment on 8 July. The US Marine Corps (USMC) has begun operations with the (V)3 rotary-wing variant of the AN/ALQ-231 Intrepid Tiger II airborne communications-band electronic attack (EA) pod.
USAF pilots add electronic warfare mission capability to UAV training
Flight Global, 4 Aug 16, Beth Stevenson
As the US Air Force faces both pilot shortages and increased demand for its unmanned air vehicle operations in contested environments, the service is offering operators new training to allow them to continue carrying out their missions while under electronic attack. The 15-day course is being jointly conducted by Creech and Nellis air bases in Nevada, with operators of the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper graduating as Electronic Combat Officers (ECO).
Electronic Weapons: Mutually Unexpected Interference
Strategy Page, 5 Aug 16, Unattributed
Since the 1990s the U.S. military has been struggling to cope with accidental jamming of wireless signals. It has reached the point where a standard part of combat training is learning the latest techniques to cope with the problem. This training now includes learning how to manage, for extended periods, with some wireless electronics useless or severely limited for hours or longer. This all began back in 2009 when the U.S. Army was driven, by the increasing incidence of electronic devices interfering with each other, unexpectedly, that they began training specialists to detect, and fix, the problem quickly. Now army combat division now have specialists trained and equipped to do this. But that wasn’t enough because there was no simple technical solution. As so many new wireless devices enter service it has become necessary to develop (and keep developing) testing procedures to spot and eliminate the worst interference.
GLOBAL
Iran’s Army Unveils Jamming Drone
Tasnim News Agency, 1 Aug 16, Unattributed
The Iranian Army Ground Force on Monday unveiled a homegrown Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) used for jamming and deception operations. Commander of the Iranian Army Ground Force Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan attended an exhibition in Tehran on Monday morning, held to display the latest achievements of the force’s experts. One of the items on display was a specific drone used in electronic warfare. The pilotless aircraft enjoys a jamming system that emits radio signals to paralyze the enemy’s communication systems.
South Korea to strengthen monitoring against North Korean jamming
Yonhap News Agency, 29 Jul 16, Unattributed
South Korea will beef up its system to counter North Korea’s attempts in recent years to jam GPS signals in the South, the science ministry said Friday. Under a set of comprehensive measures approved at a Cabinet meeting, the Seoul government will redouble efforts to develop technology that can deal with the North’s attempts and upgrade the system, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said. Following the North’s attempts to disrupt South Korea’s GPS signals across the border between 2010 and 2012, the Seoul government has set up the system to monitor the disruptions.
Chinese Navy holds live-fire drills in East China Sea
The Japan Times, 1 Aug 16, Jesse Johnson
The Chinese Navy held live-fire drills in the East China Sea on Monday, the Defense Ministry said in a short statement posted to its website. The drills, the statement said, involved firing dozens of missiles and torpedoes and were aimed at bolstering “the assault intensity, precision, stability and speed of troops amid heavy electromagnetic influences,” an apparent reference to electronic warfare. “An information technology-based war at sea is sudden, cruel and short, which requires fast transition to combat status, quick preparation and high assault efficiency,” the statement said.
Training Ukraine: Turning a Soviet Army Into a Modern Force
Here’s what 500 American and Canadian troops are doing in Ukraine amid war with Russia.
U.S. News & World Report, 2 Aug 16, Paul Shinkman
The AK-47 bullets a Ukrainian infantry platoon is using for live fire exercises on this refurbished army base were boxed in 1983. Encased in cumbersome but durable layers of plastic, cardboard and metal wrapping, they still function suitably well. That the Ukrainian military must rely on 33-year-old Soviet-era rifle rounds says a lot about how these forces fight. In many ways, they themselves are also products of a prior era that has found a new purpose in battle. “We weren’t ready for this war,” says Danilo, the infantry platoon’s assistant commander who asked his last name be withheld. He speaks flatly while taking a break between iterations of this exercise, the chin strap undone on the helmet he wears in his armored command vehicle. He makes exaggerated air quotes as he stresses whom he’s here to learn how to kill more effectively: “We were not expecting that from our ‘brothers.'”
The Kremlin’s Advantage
Why Cyberwar Will Continue
Foreign Affairs Magazine, 2 Aug 16, Eugene B. Rumer
The hack of the U.S. Democratic National Committee emails, now widely attributed to Russian intelligence, has set off a political earthquake in the United States. The brazenness of the attack, the crude attempt to intervene in a U.S. presidential election, and the equally bald-faced denial in the face of mounting evidence of Russian government complicity have prompted a host of questions that really amount to just one: How? Although a fully satisfactory answer may never be found, it is not too early to draw some conclusions from the episode—conclusions that should inform the general discourse about Russia, as well as about the challenge that Russia will present to the next U.S. administration, regardless of who is elected in November. Those experts (including this writer), who, out of an abundance of caution, initially grappled with the news of the DNC break-in by invoking the inherent difficulty of investigating cybercrimes, now have the growing body of fact and analysis pointing to Russia’s role in the hack. In keeping with National Intelligence Director James Clapper’s recent remarks on this subject, the assumption should be that Russia was behind the break-in. At this point, to deny it would simply be misleading the public.
Foreign aid assets transfer from Tobyhanna to Ukraine
DVIDS, 3 Aug 16, Jacqueline Boucher
Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko was on the tarmac to watch the arrival of counter fire radars recently transferred from here to the Eastern European country as part of the current foreign aid agreement with the United States. Team Tobyhanna and Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Distribution-Tobyhanna joined forces to test and move 31 pieces of stock Army equipment to help the beleaguered country. Depot technicians and engineers followed four AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder Radar Systems and 10 AN/TPQ-49 Lightweight Counter Mortar Radars (LCMR) across the pond to repair and field the assets. Team members will remain in country to provide technical support during an upcoming Ukrainian training exercise. Both radars are used to back track incoming fire for fast and accurate counterfire.
OF INTEREST
TechNet Augusta military trade show returns
The Augusta Chronicle, 1 Aug 16, Damon Cline
The biggest names in military communications and electronic warfare will be rubbing shoulders downtown this week for TechNet Augusta 2016. The fourth annual trade show at the Augusta Marriott at the Convention Center has exceeded the exhibit hall’s floor space, requiring organizers to put up outdoor exhibits in the surface parking lot at 10th and Reynolds streets. “It keeps growing every year,” said Barry White, the president of the Augusta Convention and Visitors Bureau.
America’s Electronic Voting Machines Are Sitting Ducks
Wired, 2 Aug 16, Brian Barrett
THIS WEEK, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump openly speculated that this election would be “rigged.” Last month, Russia decided to take an active role in our election. There’s no basis for questioning the results of a vote that’s still months away. But the interference and aspersions do merit a fresh look at the woeful state of our outdated, insecure electronic voting machines. We’ve previously discussed the sad state of electronic voting machines in America, but it’s worth a closer look as we approach election day itself, and within the context of increased cyber-hostilities between the US and Russia. Besides, by now states have had plenty of warning since a damning report by the Brennan Center for Justice about our voting machine vulnerabilities came out last September. Surely matters must have improved since then. Well, not exactly. In fact, not really at all.
A ‘Cyber District’ is being created in the C.S.R.A.
ABC-WJBF, 3 Aug 16, Stephany Bornman
The Cyber Center of Excellence at Fort Gordon is cultivating a new generation of Cyber Warriors and the impact is extending outside the gates. Cyber Security companies expanding their footprints in Augusta, Ga. means their employees and families are moving into the area. Now the heads of these companies are saying it’s never too early to get children to learn about Cyber Security. Modern Technology is changing the way people live their everyday lives. While the latest tech toys are simplifying your world, they are increasing the need for security in Cyberspace. That’s where Cyber Professionals come in, they keep your information safe from the bad guys.
Blog: When Hackers Corrupt GPS Data
Signal Magazine, 3 Aug 16, George I. Seffers
A novel attack knocks out power substations, recounts a Red Hat Inc. official. When a hacker talks about a novel way to disrupt the power grid, people listen. At least that was the case on day two of the AFCEA TechNet Augusta conference taking place in Augusta, Georgia. Shawn Wells, chief security strategist, public sector, Red Hat Inc., who was once busted—and then hired—by the NSA for breaking into the networks at Johns Hopkins University, said he recently learned at a Department of Energy cyber conference about a creative technique hackers used to mess with power distribution.
Biggest names in electronic warfare gathering in Augusta for TechNet trade show
Atlanta Business Chronicle 2 Aug 16, David Allison
Some of the biggest names in electronic warfare are in Augusta, Ga., this week for a fast-growing technology trade show. Augusta, home of Fort Gordon and the headquarters of the U.S. Army Cyber Command, is hosting TechNet Augusta for the fourth year from today through Aug. 4. Attendance could hit an all-time high of 3,000.
Electronic Warfare Events
Electronic Warfare Asia
20-21 September 2016, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
REGISTER: http://www.crows.org/event/192-aoc-conferences/2016/09/20/75-ew-asia-2016.html
Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare (EMW) Systems Engineering and Acquisition Conference
20-22 September 2016, Dahlgren, Virginia
REGISTER: http://www.crows.org/event/192-aoc-conferences/2016/09/20/68-emw-systems-engineering-and-acquisition-conference.html
Cyber Electromagnetic Activity Conference
18-20 October 2016, Aberdeen, MD
REGISTER: http://www.crows.org/event/192-aoc-conferences/2016/10/18/69-cema-2016.html
5TH Annual AOC Pacific Conference
8-9 November 2016, Honolulu, HI
REGISTER: http://www.crows.org/event/192-aoc-conferences/2016/11/08/73-5th-annual-aoc-pacific-conference.html
CyberCon 2016
16 November 2016, Washington, D.C.
REGISTER: http://cybercon.federaltimes.com/
Filed under: Cyber, Electronic Warfare Tagged: Cyber, Electronic Warfare, EW 
