The U.S. needs to pay more attention to electronic warfare
noahpinion.blog
noahpinion.blog
- Russia has cutting-edge EW technology. Russia does not possess SOTA in many aspects of military tech, but it does in EW. - Ukraine is one theater, and maybe the main one, that shows us how drone-based warfare is evolving.
Here's the way to think about EW. A drone-based war is a war conducted largely on the eletro-magnetic spectrum, because it is via that spectrum that radio-controlled drones are given instructions, how they retrieve data to navigate, and how they are jammed and spoofed.
Jamming and spoofing are the primary drivers of so-called lethal autonomy, because all sides want to continue to use drones within GPS-denied/RF-denied bubbles. "Autonomy" is a continuum. At the low end, it involves inertial navigation that lets drones continue to move toward a target once they lose contact with navigation sats and/or their operators. And the higher-end, it allows them to identify targets based on pre-programmed patterns (e.g. "here's what an SU-47 looks like; if you see something like this after we launch you in the right direction, hit it").
The real problem with the US military is not that we're no longer on the cutting-edge of EW. In many senses, we are. It's that our military-industrial complex is bloated with slow procurement practices where new tech decades years if not decades to deploy. Those procurement practices are spec driven and follow a waterfall from those specs, which themselves take a long time to hammer out.
For some people in tech, this may already raise a red flag. What we need are product and engineering teams or representatives in the field with users to observe their problems, hear their POVs, and devise better ways of doing things based on their knowledge of what's technically possible and quickly deployable. That is very rare. I have seen little of it Ukraine from any vendor or allied government. The nation(s) that can do that will win. War can be a tremendous technological accelerant, but many forces conspire to slow down product development, and the only forcing function is that the enemy is trying every day to kill you by responding to what you've got.
I am deeply worried that the US military cannot build fast or buy cheap. Cheap is important, at least in Ukraine, because we are dealing with swarms of small devices in a war of attrition, and the side that runs out of money first loses.
0 - https://warontherocks.com/2024/08/the-smartest-conversation-...
it is for now, at the early stages. When the number of drones simultaneously deployed on a given say battalion tactical field will be several thousands there would be no way for the humans nor to control their own drones, nor to react to the enemy's ones. Autonomy will be the only way.
Wrt. jamming - will see once the frequency-hopping will start to be deployed on the drones (using cheap SDR for example). And jamming stations are like Christmas trees in RF - pretty easy target.
The reality is if PRC wants to blockade TW, there's not a thing anyone can do about it. Realistically there's not even a thing US can even try to do about it. PRC executing WW2 operation starvation on TW, a smaller geography to cordon sanitaire, with PRC's magnitude greater industrial output and closer logistics tail relative to US vs JP. The math isn't just bleak, it's almost a solved equation.
"How can we win". Of course no one is going to admit it can't be done. But still very useful to hammer these hypothetical scenarios to direct industrial policy.
What's worse for China is that it would give the US time to put ships in exactly the position that it wants, then fire first. The US Navy could take a couple weeks to get all of their forces in alignment, then fire at will. The Chinese navy would be a sitting duck in a blockade- naval engagements favor the party who's willing to attack first, like a gunfighter in the old west.
I don't necessarily think that the US can win a shooting war in the Pacific, I just think that a blockade is the least likely scenario. Instead China would go with an active invasion force for Taiwan and pre-emptively missile Guam, US bases on Japan, South Korea, etc. They could definitely win that way- but they'd definitely lose if they only blockaded and didn't actually take the opportunity to shoot first
TW food security and energy with strategic storage factored in is weeks. Also most likely stores will go boom, along with most of TW defensive infra. IMO biggest poor thinking in strategic writings is blockade is non kinetic, PRC not stupid enough to blockade TW and not defang island first. Hitting energy infra for refrigeration and water infra and timer starts ticking even sooner. IMO it's pretty obvious US/west going to lose more than PRC if 90%+ of highend semi already largely denied to PRC is gone.
> sitting duck
PLAN isn't going to do any of the blockading, it's going to be coast guard since PRC will treat it as a civil (war) law enforcement. But ultimately, US-PRC war isn't just a naval engagement, it's whole of military systems engagement, PRC has more landbased fires that can destroy USN than PLAN does. Nevermind enagaging PLAN ships means USN has to be within 1-2IC, aka within PRC A2D2 bubble. It doesn't matter USN shoots first, because PLA ISR will pickup launches and PLArocketforce will shoot minutes after, (assuming PLAN doesn't immediately counter fire) before USN ordnance even reaches target, or US shooters get away. In the end everyone will have a bunch of dead ships. PRC gladly trade PLAN for USN since US hegemony loses more without navy vs PRC. Who also has 600x more ship building to reconstitute navy.
>blockade is the least likely scenario
I think blockade should assumed default because it's so easily executable and starts timer on potential TW capitulation. It should be assumed that it's baseline response, on top of other scenarios, i.e. taking out US+partner war making abilities within 1IC. Whatever else happens, including nothing, the blockade will be happening on the background.
On the other hand though, the one way to well and truly wake up the sleeping giant and unite it against you like nothing else can is to kill thousands of sailors and airmen on Day 1, as Japan learned the hard way. And much like Japan, the PRC can be strangled in a long drawn out naval conflict from outside of its A2AD bubble. China is not food or energy independent, imports most of its base metals for production uses, and Russia can only provide so much over land. There is no substitute for middle eastern oil or Australian and Brazilian iron for the PRC.
All plausible scenarios of PRC victory in a Pacific escalation scenario have the flaw of the Chinese side assuming "We blow up all the US military assets in the region and the USA gives up". As soon as the US starts to fight back and move its economy to a war footing China will face the same crushing resource shortages that ruined Imperial Japan, while conversely there is little to nothing they can do to prevent the US from continuing to import every raw material it needs to fight and win a war.
I think it maybe game theoretically correct after certain conditions met (points below), but it also opens all sorts of pyrrhic/pyrrhic conditions vs trying to convince US+co to giveup via making intervening in East Asia pyrrhicly difficult in first place.
> PRC can be strangled ... > flaw
US can increasingly be comparably strangled with conventional icmbs/prompt global strikes hitting US energy infra. People conflate expeditionary naval+air with the generalized goal of force project which is to degrade adversary homeland serenity, which PRC is going to increasingly do with missiles. People conflate resource autarky with resource security, realisitically vs PRC with conventional prompt global strike, US security exposure is basically Saudi - can have all the resources in the ground, but doesn't matter if it cannot be protected. Blockading ships or hitting energy producing infra is just disrupting warmaking on different points in supply chain.
The biggest flaw in US strategic thinking, assuming PRC does not, and will not have CONUS strike options. Reality is once they do at scale (and they are pursuing this), US ability to intervene limited because they have to game theory loss of CONUS serenity and all the hegemonic benefits that entails, and whether that's worth it for TW, or east asia security presence.
IMO that's PRC's medium term deterrance buildup/gametheory:
1. Build nuclear parity for conventional faceoff 2. Build out rocket based prompt global strike 3. Wait for US to accept there's little chance of winning IndoPac, and trying risks US homeland serenity at scale 4. Aim for regional hegemony -> slowly push US out of TW intervention then JP/SKR/PH etc
Other things we know PLA test more missiles than anyone else, the TEL factories are ramping up, and a lot of writings on R&D are talking about sensors/algos to hit small targets, i.e. even moving targets (like tankers awacs, even vehicles), so large fixed target infra like refineries, lng plants, server centres, aviation plants, large surface combants + harden bomber hangers are probably doable/forgone. Areas of active research suggest they're way past 100s of meter CEP. Besides, there's no technical reason ICBM limited to 100m+ CEP, just there was less reason to pursue more accuracy given nuclear payload.
Hence the math very much checks out for PRC yeeting 2-3 figure 10s meter CEP prompt strike icbm, disrupting energy / production infra with knock on affects in trillions or general wartime attrition. A bunch of ICBM TELS hidden in 1000s of tunnels on 100,000km of roadways is much cheaper than US force projection model with epensive carriers/bomber platforms + logistics of foward basing. Which themselves are subject to PRC global strike. Arguably easier for global strike missiles to take out / degrade US projection model which can leave asymmetry in homeland strike capabilities. Imagine scenario where US carriers can't get close enough to sortie, regional airfields can't be kept up, strategic bombers go boom soon after they undergo maintenance, that is after most of the tankers planes, replenishment ships have been taken out because they stood still for 30 minutes to stock up. Meanwhile PRC has a stockpile of ICBMs in some mountain to continue CONUS strikes. Which is the better global strike model?
For nuclear risk and civilian mobilization, it's the same can of warms as US threatening to hit PRC with ANY conventional weapon since all US delivery platforms are nuclear capable and PRC has no way of confirming conventional unless launch on confirmation. Which US planners/public officials threaten all the time (mainland strikes) when talking about US/PRC war. Which ultimately circles back to deterrence value of conventional global strike, especially when proliferatted in public consciousness like MAD. Except now Americans have to ask themselves if they're fine with conventional MAD, being revereted to preindustrial age because food and power cannot be taken for granted. This is PRC's integrated deterrence against US - making US gen pop understand cost of being as vunerable as anyone else, and whether that cost is worth it for TW or East Asia.
Merely PRC having CONUS strike capabilities means IT MUST BE used in response to PRC mainland strikes or efforts to degrade mainland i.e. PRC populous is simply not going to allow CCP to not attack CONUS if mainland attacked, knowing PLA has CONUS strike capabilities. It's basically locking in / predetermining likely escalation responses IF US attacks mainland (again, including SLOC disruption).
The escalation game is, if US tries to degrade mainland PRC energy/calorie even via SLOC disruption, PRC will attempt to degrade CONUS energy/calorie. The proportionality isn't you sink my tankers, I sink your tankers which you are less reliant on, it's you take away X% of my energy, I take away X% of yours. And CONUS strike also gives PRC ability to ALSO escalate conventionally, it's asking is trading my J20 plant worth you losing F35 plants that underpins NATO air power... what about boeing, nvidia, facebook, apple, payment processor infra... there are all these hegemonic crown jewels US have that has disproportional value vs PRC losing comac, smic, huawei or wechat pay. Does US really want to put all that on the line for TW, for East Asia? Would US like to gracefully abdicate East Asia and settle just being a regional + atlantic hegemon? Or US can risk fight a proper existential war where both sides has high chance of getting reset to pre industrial conditions. And short of nuclear MAD who who will reconstitute faster. Who can rebuilt power plants, industries, shipyards, lay new naval hulls faster than the other.
Upping the ante to existential national survival tier total war on BOTH sides instead of (currently commonly perceived) just PRC side is the goal. The goal is to make US planners / Americans worry as much as they think PRC planners / Chinese worry.
>The USN can deny the whole ocean outside the A2AD bubble to the PRC
Prompt global strike means USN can be sunk / denied globally, hence "global" strike. But without even hitting combatant hulls, consider typical USN fleet has ~1 week endurance and needs to be replenished at sea to sustain ops. All those replenishment ships... of which we're really talking about fast supply T-AOES... USN has like 4... that's all the fast replenish to support all Of USN. Then there's ~20 slower oilers that's not fit for high tempo ops. All these replenishment are constantly stationary to restock, sometimes daisy chained at sea, but eventually logistics chain ends on land, which means many opportunities to hit. That's where "prompt", as 10s of minutes to target, part comes in. Effectively renders entire USN (or any US hardware that's stationary in open for <30m) one time deployment assets. Yes, there's have nuclear carriers, and some SSNs, but carriers likely won't operate without escorts, and can't sortie without replenishment aviation fuel / munitions. SSN but #s of conventional SSN small, magazine depth limited, currently takes multi weeks to reload (but still dangerous). Naval hulls themselves can't hide at sea forever, eventually they need to be brought into drydock for maintainence, but the second the do, can get hit. Virtue of subs is they can go straight into tunnels. This is also assuming PRC doesn't extend kill chain of ICBMs (which R&D hint they are) to hit moving targets at sea, really just extend current IRBM tech for hemisphere+ A2D2, then there's no where for USN to hide.
Now if carrier groups can be rendered ineffective globally, and 1IC is saturated with PRC precision fires (see PRC cruise missile gigafactory churning 1000 components a day), then US loses substantial ability to deliver large % of power projection fires to PRC mainland. Global strike cam also kill stealth bombers in hardened shelters, but granted shelters can be upgraded (or moved into mountains, ditto with SSNs) to protect bomber size assets (not naval unless subsurface), HENCE IMO there's a reason B21 is the only program that's going smoothly vs shipbuilding/NGAD, because CONUS based projection most survivable. Sprint to 100 B21s by 2050s is to make up for loss of projected carrier fires made ineffective due to modern missiles+A2D2. Breaking bombers follows similar attrition game of PRC long range strike picking off logistics of aerial tanking, like naval replenishment, but there's 100s of tankers (vs 10s for naval) i.e. for a few stealth bombers with limited aggregate payload, i.e. 9 active B2s trying to drops ~90 TLAMs every few days is... not really a lot when there are like 100,000s-1,000,000s of aim points on PRC mainland, meanwhile interception rate of subsonic cruise missiles approaching 100% with modern missile defense, which PRC can likely gigafactory interceptors as well (along with ISR to track). The numbers are not substantial even if accounting for B21 acquisitions on horizon. Subsurface balance depends on time horizon of conflict, see Bohai expanding SSN production to 6+ per year.
How would this work out in practice, unless US preemptively starts war with PRC on immediate horizon, PRC has benefit of deciding when to move on TW / confront US. Likely will wait 5+ years for nuclear build up, build out renewable / EV resiliency, hammer out more SSNs and rocket force, bluewater replenishment - PLA still very much amidst building spree. If US tried to blockade PRC shipping then (nvm that there's not remotely enough USN+CG hulls or replenish to sustain blockade), imo how things unfold: in critical SLOCs, i.e. MENA to Malacca, PLAN will escort shipping and run the blockade and dare US to enforce. Depending on state of PLA replenishment fleet, ability to retrofit temporary oilers to extend blue water range, they'll also station PLA aboard ships for trip wire. If shooting pops off, aforementioned escalation cycles starts, and USN breaks because PRC breaks USN's very vunerable bluewater sustainment system - basically the entire systems confrontation/destruction warfare they've been honing for past 10+ years precisely for this problem. There's also escalations like hitting US offshore platforms as prelude to hitting CONUS energy supplies if sufficient PRC energy disrupted. And the very real possibly of simply dragging a 1IC US partner into fight (likely JP) and trigger US security committment... to fight within A2D2 where US weakest. And JP, as an island (and SK, PH) will start way before effects of blockade on PRC could take effect. Yes all of PLAN likely be sunk, along with lot of PRC shipping and energy infra, but end of day, feasible for PRC to deal proportional damage to CONUS, all while dismantling US East Asian security architecture.
Which circles back to:
>In a total war short of nuclear exchange the US has asymmetric ability to reach out and touch Chinese mainland targets than China does to the US.
Note how vunerable US force projection platforms logistics are... how degradable they can be because frankly they're not designed for adversaries with capabilities to disrupt the logistics tail that sustains them in mind. A substantial amount of CONUS ability to deliver fire to PRC can be rendered ineffective simply because they rely on delivery platforms that cannot be properly sheltered/protected outside of perfect missile defense, in which case it's back to attrition / magazine depth game. Alternatively, PRC spamming conventional road mobile ICMBs = they can be be stored/protected easily. Much of production chain of 60ftx6ft diameter icbm missiles can also be moved underground, with historic precedent (see PRC third front). Their launchers/TELs chasis can be built cheaply in the 100,000s. Cannot do that with bombers and ships. Assuming any forethought/planning/stockpile, it's not inconceivable that PRC will have asymmetric CONUS strike advantage because US ability to mainland strike is largely not survivable while PRC's is. The reason being US never needed to protect logistiscs tail closer to CONUS at scale, and didn't need to because the entire point of expeditionary platforms is get into adversaries face so they can't reach tail, hence now sunk cost into these systems, vunerable in world where improved rocketry can hit them. So TLDR in conventional total war, I would not be surprised if US asymmetric ability to deliver more fires using vunerable, reusable platforms gets rapidly disabled, and PRC comes out ahead in the long range fires numbers because (imo) prompt global strike missile complex / much more survivable and appropriate for peer level attrition fight where you can't expect munition delivery platforms to survive. Smart move is make munitions their own delivery platforms, hence prompt global strike icbms.
As the addage went, 'Ships cannot stand against land-based air power.' (also now, missile power)
If you burrowed some missiles into Ishigaki and the Batanes, similar to what Russia did in the Black Sea, it'd make for a very difficult blockade of the eastern side of Taiwan. And you can dig them into volcanic islands pretty well...
Essentially every inch of TW shores, including east side is within 7 minute range of being hit by PRC land based fires - PRC does not require naval or aviation elements to maintain a blockade, that's what makes it appealing, the ease. It's byproduct of TW proximity to mainland fires, short range ~1000km fires that PLA have in stupid abundance of that it's easy for PLA to shut down everything around TW from purely mainland, meaning any effort to break blockade requires escalating to mainland attacks, which is to put it mildly is hard. Anything prepositioned close to TW is also ~7 minutes away from being destroyed, and can't be resupplied in first place, and islands themselves too small to preposition enough hardware to matter. PRC A2D2 is not just water, it covers everything within missile range, which given their cruise missile gigafactory that makes 1000 components a day, is essentially everything in 1IC / 1500km, aka US can literally preposition all every missile cell in their inventory (including 10000+ VLS on ships) and a few weeks of PRC production is enough to satuate with spares for punitory follow up against US partners for hosting. Hence they so far haven't, outside a few token security theatre deployments / not in #s that matter. IMO negotiating basing for land missiles, especially road mobile the hardest - it's difficult geopolitical problem, not reliable (like carriers) / can be revoked pending PRC friendly gov or if host country gets cold feet / domestic politics doesn't allow, i.e. civilians/constituants NIMBY about US military deployment, even if they're pro US defense partnership. Can only put so much eggs in that basket, when perception of PRC force balance in theatre is increasingly overhwelming, host countries risk calculus change when PRC had a few 1000 missiles split among all targets years ago, to 1000 missiles per day, enough to deindustrialize them for cooperating/enabling US to intervene in Chinese civil war. IMO no easy move to break TW blockade, because it's contingent on winning total war against PRC mainland.
Even a spot of the ocean is big, and they'd need RQ-180-alikes to maintain 24/7 ISTAR to the east of Taiwan, where the biggest problem is that everything is on the other side of a mountain range.
I'm not sure the Huanjings have detailed enough space-based SAR for ship targeting purposes, but even if so ASAT is a poor exchange in terms of satellite cost vs method of destruction.
Absent something like the US' future LEO SBR, it doesn't fulfill the persistence criteria.
> satuate with spares for punitory follow up against US partners for hosting.
If the Chinese escalate to full strikes against host countries, then it's WWIII. (Maybe without nukes, if we're lucky)
If host countries are staging ground for attacks on PRC of course they're going to get hit, they become legitimate military targets then, hence reluctance to host. Drawing US / compelling them to fight in 1IC where PRC force balance strongest is beneficial, ultimate PRC geostrategic goal is to displace US security architecture in region by making hosting untenable, can only demonstrate that by taking out US hardware based there, plus extra dose of pain for host countries for participating to deter others from hedging with US security once TW Damocles off the table. Big reason region reluctant to host US hardware is because they don't want to be missile sinks in TW scenario. PRC net security posture worse if region thinks hosting US forces after TW cost free, so every reason to make examples out of those who currently do.
Dont know exact cruise missile model, just they have manufacturing infra in place to build stupid amounts of them. Clips of doc showed proper turbo jet components, i.e. they're not building shit tier shaheeds using moped engines. Both of which are non ballistic / has maneuverability to hit east of mountains.
third year: ukraine will have to give back the territory it conquered .
maybe we crossed a strange, singular point somewhere, that makes the small and intelligent ,more powerful then the big and mighty. Maybe all your truths are just empires wishing for a world were it would hold.
TW scenario is one where blockaded island cannot be supplied under motivated PRC siege, and the mere act of blockading (starvation), throws basically everyone into the grinder with a timer on survival especialy in an island far beyond it's natural carrying capacity. It's just acknowledging that historically if a sieger can maintain a siege, the sieged either capitulates or starves to death. PRC sieging TW directly off her coast with modern tech is all things considered, relative to the logistics historic distant sieges, easy mode.
I'd like to see a little more substance if you're directly refuting this statement from TFA and calling it stupid. You may be right, but TFA demonstrates research on this exact topic and your comment does not.
But TFA explicitly says that's not what it's suggesting...?
I do take some issue with the implication that the agencies don't? Reminds me of students going off about how "nobody is doing anything about climate change," which is demonstrably false. At least the security stuff is less visible, I suppose.
I'm not trying to argue for a blank check for US agencies to do things without doing any disclosure. But, I am also not entirely clear how to get better transparency at home with no reasonable expectation of it afar?
I know there's a lot of work on SEWIP Block 3, but Russian ground forces have effective and powerful systems.
If you need an encrypted channel, you can use the internet, including the mobile phone data access; GSM modems are not that expensive.
If you need to have an encrypted radio channel far from mobile network coverage, without identifying yourself in any way, who are you hiding from? Because a communication channel to a remote weapon would look much like that.
Note that you can still use cryptography to ensure the integrity of your messages, by signing them.
We expect privacy in everything else, why not telecoms? As far as ID goes, we're required to transmit our call signs (mine's KA9DGX), those could be in the clear. You're not likely to get a bunch of us old timers using it for much more than extending networks to the neighbor, barn, etc. If there happens to be an encrypted signal, let's say a connection to an HTTPS web site... that's encryption, and illegal to send via ham radio.
If we're able to do such things, we could then look into all sorts of other uses, like monitoring crops in the fields, metropolitan scale community networking, etc.
Same with CB: I'm fine with sending some digital data over it, as long as the format remains open, content unencrypted, and voice comm remains possible. Well, in a pinch, run an ssh session over it. But everybody will understand that your circumstances are extraordinary.
We have few public spaces, and such reserved, commonly accessible areas should remain, if for nothing else then for maintaining an extra communication channel for extreme circumstances. Search and rescue operations, wildfire monitoring when the normal means of monitoring fail, reporting and coordination in disaster areas, things of such sort.
I'm all for business and took part in running several small businesses. Still I think that not everything should be devoted to commerce; the common public spaces, like the ham radio bands, public parks, or public sidewalks, add resilience to the society. They are easy to lose, harder to reinstate.
Things I noticed:
1. Glinert somehow manages to advocate for continued funding of US chip manufacturers without mentioning the CHIPS Act of 2022 which allocated over $50 billion in new funding for this exact thing over the next 10 years or so. Does Glinert think this is the right amount, or does he want it to be increased?
2. Glinert mentions some scary scenarios, such as China’s rapidly increasing EW capability completely disabling the US in a future conflict, and even shows a couple of diagrams. But nowhere has he mentioned any of the US programs that have implemented electronic protection (EP) measures in just about every military system with a radar or wireless communication system. I’ll admit that the details of most of these programs are classified, but the article doesn’t even mention that the US has been continuing to invest in EP as well as its own EW systems. This feels a little one sided.
3. Glinert, the CEO of a tech company (aka non-traditional defense contractor) argues that the US government should be working more directly with Silicon Valley instead of with major defense contractors. Great news! There is a contract vehicle called an Other Transaction Authority (OTA), where the distinguishing requirement is that a non-traditional defense contractor must perform a non-trivial amount of work on the contract, and the acquisition corps of each service is using them a lot. The traditional prime contractors are still getting a lot of business, but there is plenty of opportunity for a chip company to get in on government money (provided they are offering something the government has asked for).
4. I’ll admit that Glinert’s point about autonomy being important is probably correct. I don’t want to seem like I totally dismissed the article. The government is certainly working on it, time will tell whether these autonomous systems work out well or not.
5. Hot-swapping chips is already done in most systems- it’s called “line replaceable modules,” which simplify maintenance as well as enable upgrades. Many military systems get upgraded throughout their service life, and those include computational upgrades along with engines and whatnot.
Bottom line: if you’re not an insider this article probably gave you a lot to think about. If you are an insider you probably noticed a lot of stuff wasn’t mentioned, and it’s not just because of classified info. The US has been paying attention to electronic warfare, and will continue to do so. What the US won’t do is take wild risks like a SV startup- national security is higher stakes that don’t allow staking everything on a moonshot. If your company wants to play in that space, you have to demonstrate that you can deliver, or you have to convince a larger company like Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman to take you on as a subcontractor.
I have had it in my back log since it's posting on YouTube, so I can't make any promises to it's contents.