Page 15 - Williams Foundation Future of Electronic Warfare Seminar

A New Approach and Attitude to Electronic Warfare in Australia

“The day where we are all suitably learned in EW that it no longer becomes a label is what we should strive
for.

“That would signify success.

“That would have seen the mainstream embrace EW and cyber.

“So, my challenge to you is, regardless of your organisation, are you an operator in our age of EW?”

CDR Mike Paul on the Partnership with Australia and Shaping a Way
Ahead

CDR Mike Paul, Electronic Attack Wing, US Pacific Fleet, highlighted the working relationship with the RAAF
and the importance of integrating the Growler effect within the evolving kill web approach of the US Navy.

The US DoD’s new EW Strategy tells us that Electronic Warfare underpins U.S. national military objectives
through demonstration of electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) superiority. “A force multiplier for a range of military
operations, EW maximizes lethality of precision strike weapons, assures mission command and increases mobility
by protecting complex battle networks, weapon systems and forces. EW provides rapid situational awareness and
produces chaos in adversary decision-making.”

The fact is that U.S. military operations are rarely conducted unilaterally and are increasingly reliant on
contributions from our partners and allies. The Navy I think has done great work, ensuring EW development
efforts are interoperable, and aligned with our allies (the Growler is a good example). The battlespace awareness
you get with the passive sensing capabilities in the Growler is not free - by nature, our mission requires
interoperable data sources and software formats.

In fact our Chief of Naval Operation’s Maritime Strategy states that we must also expand opportunities for
coalition EW training and education in the U.S. and abroad. We’re tasked to build or enhance partner EW
capabilities and capacity, and ensure partner and ally capabilities remain viable against emerging peer or near-
peer threats.

Of the 4 Objectives in the DoD’s EW Strategy, we like to say we achieved the “4th Objective” – to foster access,
enhance interoperability and grow warfighting capacity – at least at the operational and tactical levels.

This is Operational partnering. It’s easy to say “no,” or “you can’t,” much more difficult to say yes. We had
plenty of hurdles, some seeming impossible. I count significant “No’s” that were turned into yes.

A significant part of the presentation detailed how the integration of the RAAF with the US Navy Growler
force was achieved and in relatively compressed period of time.

This is a case study in many ways of the kind of integration, which the US and the core allies need to achieve
to have the kind of force multiplier effect from an integrated coalition force.

This event is a great opportunity to mention some of the wins we’ve had in operationalizing our partnership in
Airborne Electronic Attack (AEA).

We at Whidbey Island and leaders in NAVAIR removed years of cultural barriers limiting collaboration in a short
amount of time.
That took people to lead and innovate. But that’s what it took to begin to operationalize a strategic AEA
partnership.

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