Page 52 - Australian Defence Magazine February 2022

52 ELECTRONIC WARFARE
FEBRUARY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
ELECTRONIC WARFARE IN A REGIONAL CONTEXT
In recent years there has been increasing interest in the dark arts of Electronic Warfare as militaries become increasingly reliant on the Electro-Magnetic spectrum and, at the same time, step up efforts to seek any advantage by denying or disrupting an adversary’s use of the same.
MIKE YEO | MELBOURNE
THE United States Department of Defense defines EW as, “military action involving the use of electromagnetic and directed energy to control the electromagnetic spectrum or to attack the enemy”. It consists of electronic attack, elec- tronic protection and electronic warfare support.
Electronic Attack (EA) involves, “the use of electromag- netic energy, directed energy, or anti-radiation weapons to attack personnel, facilities, or equipment with the intent of degrading, neutralising, or destroying enemy combat capa- bility and is considered a form of fires”. Electronic protec- tion involves, “actions taken to protect personnel, facilities,
and equipment from any effects of friendly or enemy use of the electromagnetic spectrum that degrade, neutralise, or destroy friendly combat capability”.
Finally, electronic warfare support includes, “actions tasked by, or under direct control of, an operational com- mander to search for, intercept, identify, and locate or localize sources of intentional and unintentional radi- ated electromagnetic energy for the purpose of immediate threat recognition, targeting, planning and conduct of fu- ture operations”.
The latter comes under the broader Intelligence, Sur-