By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
Navy EA-18G Growler alongside jamming pods
AOC: Electronic warfare has come upwardly a long agency since Pentagon legend Paul Kaminskiwarned that “years of neglect” had left the USA dangerously behind Russia in addition to China. But has the Defense Department made the $2.3 billion a yr increases inward EW spending that Kaminski in addition to the respected Defense Science Board said was necessary dorsum at the 2014 Association of Old Crows conference, months afterwards Russian jammers fried the Ukrainian army’s communications? No — non yet.
“We take away maintain non achieved $2.3 billion inward budget growth,” Pentagon EW acquisitions manager Bill Conley told me. “We are continuing to add together investment (and) nosotros are addressing the most pressing gaps.”
How much is the Defense Department spending on EW? R&D spending totals nigh $5 billion a year, Conley told the conference, but the best tech is useless if it doesn’t larn bought in addition to fielded. When it comes to EW procurement, however, hence much coin is classified, in addition to hence much is in flux, that Conley can’t plough over a world let out for how much the Defense Department is truly spending.
Pentagon electronic warfare official William Conley (center) receives an achievement honor from the EW grouping Association of Old Crows.
“Much Better Mistakes”
Conley spoke to me yesterday on the sidelines of this yea’s AOC conference, where he’d only accepted an honor for his operate inward the Office of the Secretary of Defense since 2015. (We first quoted him when he was only ii months into the job). At the really least, Conley said to laughter from the audience, “we’re making much ameliorate mistakes forthwith than nosotros were a few years ago.”
But, I asked Conley afterwards the honor ceremony, how are the mistakes getting better? One crucial difference, he told me, is that EW advocates are forthwith ameliorate organized in addition to well-entrenched inward the bureaucracy, alongside a much ameliorate agreement of how to larn their priorities into the Byzantine budget process. That doesn’t hateful they tin ever convince overstep Pentagon officials to fund their programs, but they are at the tabular array making their pitch to those leaders, rather than flailing nigh exterior the room only trying to larn themselves heard.
Robert Work
“If something is non going to larn funded,” Conley told me, “(at least) it made it all the agency to the correct in addition to necessary decisionmaker — every bit opposed to beingness discarded really early on inward that procedure because yous submitted a hateful solar daytime afterwards a deadline (for example) — those form of basic mistakes.” The crucial establishment hither is the Electronic Warfare Executive Committee, created yesteryear then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work inward 2015 to pick out top-level attending to EW: It’s currently co-chaired yesteryear Joint Chiefs Vice-Chairman Gen. Paul Selva in addition to undersecretary for acquisition Ellen Lord, both of whom are speaking today at the AOC conference.
Since the EW EXCOM’s inception, Conley’s been its staff director, every bit good every bit Lord’s EW director. “Three years ago, I got to plough over the closing keynote” at AOC, Conley chuckled: Now that his bosses are showing upwardly themselves, he’s relegated to running a panel. But he’s soundless the Pentagon’s best-connected official working total fourth dimension on electronic warfare.
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It’s non only the EXCOM, though. There are other of import institutions created inward the concluding 3 years: a high-level squad inward the Air Force, a novel partition of the Army staffrun yesteryear a one-star general, a novel three-star deputy commandant of the Marine Corps for information, which includes EW.
The Navy, beingness the 1 service that didn’t scrap most of its EW assets afterwards the Cold War, remained strong on EW — Conley himself started every bit a Navy civilian engineer — but it has likewise expanded its EW staff in addition to created a novel Digital Warfare Office. The Joint Staff in addition to Strategic Command take away maintain likewise beefed upwardly their once-modest efforts on EW.
So fifty-fifty though EW arch-advocate Bob Work left the Pentagon inward 2017 — having stayed to rest the transition from Obama to Trump — electronic warfare is forthwith institutionalized plenty it tin sustain both high-level attending in addition to funding, Conley argued.
But how much funding? The response to that, it turns out, gets really complicated.
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