Look to where the innovations came from, publically at least. It’s in the areas you decry. I think it’s a bit like establish another NASA, while Space X takes failures as a learning tool as bureaucracy fears criticism.
Yes. And computer gaming is a big part of what's driven both GPU and CPU chip architecture, and the coding that creates gaming "enemies" that learn from their mistakes--and yours--in real time.
Once a drone is cut off--by jamming--from its human controller, only an "AI" programmable series of "If A happens, do B" responses will allow it do its job. Which is usually target acquisition and/or evasion.
A good recent book on this topic is “Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War” by Shah and Kirchhoff https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199897959. It describes how the Defense Innovation Unit is finally using our strength in startups to get smart AI enhanced weapons and defenses in place over the objections of the legacy prime contractors, who are mostly skilled at selling big slow dumb and expensive weapons systems which are both weak and vulnerable as shown in Ukraine.
To be fair, of the kit we've shipped to Ukraine, some has been extremely effective. But Russian ECM/ECCM has also been evolving, rendering some systems--especially those that rely on GPS nav--pretty much useless.
But if you're making a critique of over-concentration in defense contractor market, I whole heartedly agree.
The problem with speculating and commenting on this topic is the same as that with cyber capabilities: Because of the extremely decisive nature of the weapons systems in question for either side, neither will ever reveal its full capabilities until it's FAR too late to speculate or comment on.
EW and cyber will indeed absolutely be UTTERLY decisive when the time comes for a conflict.
And we absolutely won't know which side will win until that conflict actually happens.
I disagree and believe we can predict some things because the laws of physics give us some reliable boundaries.
1) Optical and directional electromagnetic radiation can be used to communicate (e.g. between the ships in the articles scenario),
2) phased arrays can cancel out directional noise from jammers and so can mechanical filters (think directional shielding / amplification)
3) autonomous systems can operate without communication just like jet pilots can fly „silent missions“ today.
4) EMP shielding of electronics is sth that is old tech but might need some adaption to make it lightweight and mil-grade enough for low cost drones…
Together these can reliably disrupt the Chinese and if cash-efficient StartUps develop them, it can be available pretty quickly and affordably. That’s the authors main point and I 100% agree.
My point was that the state of art for ALL this tech is both insanely classified AND well beyond anything that we Muggles can have a meaningfully intelligent discourse about here on Al Gore's internet.
Phased arrays are already in use; that's what the AESAs are on literally every modern fighter and destroyer we make, and the team that made the AN/APG-81 for the F-35 in fact won some award for its performance against jamming. But that's about the extent of public knowledge! For entirely understandable reasons, we have ZERO clue about the full range of capabilities of the AN/APG-81 specifically, nor the rest of the F-35's EW suite, NOR of their Chinese counterparts.
It's all one big black box. The tech has either already been developed, or either side or both are bluffing; there's no point making a new startup to develop something DoD has probably been sitting on for 30 years. And the other reason there are no start-ups is because the minute you DO start working on some sort of Super-EW-Radar-Do-Everything-Device, the Feds show up and either hire you or shut you down.
Startups are cash-efficient because they operate out in the open market. Investors can come by and check out their product, and evaluate them quite brutally on whether it works or not. National defense is inherently NOT an open market. Whether it works or not, anyone who wants to evaluate the product has to be vetted for whether they're a security risk.
You may be overthinking this. Just like in the Spanish Civil War, both sides--Axis & Allies--were using the battlefield to test their newest weapons systems. And while it's *possible* some high-end systems (e.g., Patriots not able to successfully intercept hypersonic Zircons) are being intentionally handicapped for spooky natsec reasons, it's unlikely, as the success and failure rates of the varying contractor's weapons systems, will determine future contract procurement rates.
I think that's an overgeneralization. The SCW didn't have the US and UK deploying codebreakers or radar, for instance, let alone long-range bombers, night-fighters, nukes (obviously), or any of the other weapons that won WWII.
Likewise, we haven't deployed anything more advanced than aging F-16s to Ukraine. Patriots are ALREADY intercepting Zircons... but even if they weren't, I'm not claiming that HIMARS has some super-double-secret war reserve mode; I'm claiming that the F-35 almost certainly *does*. We already know that the US hasn't exported the full domestic capabilities of the F-35 to any of the partner countries, let alone demonstrate them on a battlefield.
Moreover, lest we overfocus on the F-35, there are dozens of other weapons systems whose abilities we've truly never demonstrated. And why would we? I'm not saying there are super-secret modes that aren't being used on weapons systems in Ukraine, I'm saying that a bare fraction of our weapons systems are even actually being USED there. We most certainly AREN'T testing our most important weapons on the highest-profile battlefield.
My point is, I'm not some gullible fanboy rube who thinks we've got all the best weapons hiding up our sleeves. It's entirely possible that EW in Taiwan will expose us as the emperor with no clothes, a paper tiger! But it's also entirely possible we bat away Chinese EW like a bad Star Trek plot. I'm just saying that because of how highly classified this shit is, it's not likely we'll know either way right up until the shots actually get fired.
And I'm not doing this out of "overthinking". Rather, I'm arguing this precisely because I think it's pointless to have a bunch of dumb discussions about technology we can't confirm exists or doesn't. I'm arguing AGAINST overthinking this. ANY conclusions we'd draw from such discussions would be fundamentally flawed, and would pave the way towards catastrophic miscalculations when the fateful day shots get fired actually comes.
The big mistake is the Chinese counting on EW as not being seen as an act of war. Probably true under Biden or Harris, maybe not true under all future Presidents.
I wouldn't even make it about any specific president; I'd just say that they may be mis-estimating EW's escalatory capability in either direction.
In the bad direction... one of the famous things we know about the US military is that when a unit is cut off from our leadership, they sort of go into an autopilot mode. They'll follow their ROEs until events make it clear the ROEs are no longer appropriate; ditto their given objectives, etc. Americans are known to take initiative when orders are not clear! It's not hard to imagine that a blinded and deafened unit might see the EW as an act of war and make a mistake in a heightened state of alert.
On the other hand... we're also one of the obsessively-trained militaries in the world. We literally train for situations where we're deaf and blind. I could perhaps see the Chinese panicking when they notice us just treating their jamming like "business as usual" and switching to "Mark 1 Eyeball" like we were dutifully trained to. But it's not hard to imagine their EW just being a complete dud, and leading them to balk at a critical moment.
I am disappointed that the author says ‘be nimble’ and then…recommends more analog chips. Agility in the electromagnetic domain means using more advanced software-defined radios (SDRs) that can more nimbly hop across waveforms, phased arrays that can punch through noise, infrared transmission that is by definition immune to jamming, and (as mentioned) terminal autonomy for UAS.
The US is taking the lessons from Ukraine very seriously. I lost count at the number of well-funded startups run by serious people that are actively addressing this issue, as well as work by primes like L3Harris to adapt. Do we have more work to do? Absolutely. Skydio’s BlueUAS rollout in Ukraine was a disaster because of Russian EW, and DIU has multiple open topics on the issue.
A more interesting discussion is how the increasing ubiquity of SDRs and networked devices means the commercial telecom industry may leapfrog the defense sector. EW is in a sense a network congestion problem, and I will be surprised if militaries don’t find novel applications for emerging commercial 5G/6G technology
This essay is very, very wrong in its assumptions and far too glib in its assessments. It doesn't look at the details of ongoing defense programs in EW, or understand what modern EW hardware looks like (mostly software). It doesn't understand what modern (and by modern I mean 80 year old) weapons actually use the electromagnetic spectrum for, or the capabilities of already deployed communications systems are. Oh and using a picture of radar jamming to illustrate (harder) communications jamming is just the brown M&M on top.
The US has had frequency hopping communications for at least 50 years. Missiles that hit their target without any external dependencies have been around for decades: Harpoon, NSM, Tomahawk all avoid dependencies on jammable things in some mission modes. Yes, GPS is great when you have it. But having a missile find its target without it is something we know how to do.
Modern transcever design is all digital, after a very small frontend. Whatever waveform, long range of frequencies to hop to, advanced DSP to do all that.
You can just look at the publicly available SIBR and DARPA programs and defense reports to get the picture of what the state of play is. This is embarrasingly shallow.
1. Excellent this is brought to the forefront by you.
2. I hope ship's crew still knows signaling.
3. Surface ships may need 3 mile long low frequency antennas like submarines to communicate.
4. The USN should have a permanent rotating port of call visit to Taiwan.
5. The large capital ships are too vulnerable in the Pacific if approaching China. Myriad small platforms are needed.
6. Between the military industrial complex and Republican unwillingness to advocate for Western democracy there appears no way to secure defense and deterrence. This is the underlying problem.
From my Proceedings (USN) subscription, the author's hypothetical scenario was not really plausible; as maybe a few DD's would be assigned to escort civvy container ships trying push their way past a PLAN ship blockade. While our SSN's lurk (hopefully) undetected nearby, using passive sonar.
Our carrier groups will be likely positioned hundreds of km. further offshore.
You should have zero knowledge of our electronic warfare capbilities are. If you do, then a lot of folks should be fired. My guess we give the Ukrainians our old stuff. The Ukrainians can figure a lot of this out as the spectrum is out there to view.
The Air Force in particular has paid scant attention to electronic warfare (EW) over the last few decades as the fighter pilots who run the USAF consider it nerd stuff and besides, they have stealth to take of that anyways.
The Chinese also have a massive advantage in that they can create a specific, optimized EW system to counter every one of our emitters (radios, datalinks, radars, etc.) whereas our EW equipment has to be more generic to counter threats anywhere in the world (Russian, Chinese, our own stuff that we sold to people who are now not on friendly terms with us, etc.).
We have something the Chinese do not in the same quality. Submarines. Should China blockade Taiwan, the US should declare the South China Sea a war zone. Foreign Ships lose their insurance if they travel into a war zone. China has plenty of ships, but if we sink a few of them, how long can China sustain the war if it can no longer ship goods?
China will no doubt attempt to find and sink our submarines. China is just as vulnerable to EW as we are. What I really believe is that neither the Harris nor Trump Administration will come to Taiwan's defense. With Taiwan only 100 miles from the Chinese coast, we are at a huge disadvantage and have already lost Taiwan. They bought and have paid for $19 billion dollars worth of weapons which still have not been delivered. We need to make Taiwan a porcupine...we have failed.
"What I really believe is that neither the Harris nor Trump Administration will come to Taiwan's defense."
You say this like it is a 'bad thing'. We really don't have any business defending Taiwan except for some ideological mumbo-jumbo about "defending democracy" when we can't even defend it within our own nation. There is no ground swell urge to get involved in Taiwan and the weapons we sold them are not a threat to China or we wouldn't have risked selling to them. We have no dog in this fight and China knows this. "Coming to Taiwan's defense" is low priority for a majority of Americans and U.S. Navy commanders know it would be a suicide mission for them. Yeah, U.S. military defense companies are making a killing selling old hardware to Taiwan, but that is the limit of our national involvement.
That's certainly the assessment being sold on FOX News. That defending Taiwan, our diplomatic and military ally, isn't really our fight.
If Xi militarily conquers Taiwan--like Hitler did Czechoslovakia in '37--do you honestly think he'll stop there? Only a military alliance of US + ASEAN + Vietnam + India--where an attack on one, is an attack on all, will contain China. With Taiwan as a non-negotiable tripwire.
And only Harris and the Dems can deliver on creating that alliance.
Taiwan is a “non-negotiable tripwire” not for the U.S. but for China. You need to study up on the history of the Chinese Civil War and how Taiwan became a military dictatorship until recently. They are not our “allies” but a Cold War relic we use as a thorn in China’s side. Do has no intention of militarily invading Taiwan unless we force him to do so. This is a Chinese problem seeking a Chinese solution on Chinese time. Taiwanese speak, read, and write Chinese. Their culture and heritage are Chinese. Eventually, maybe a century from now, Taiwan will be reunited with the Mainland from which it was born. Our meddling does more harm than good and increases the chance of violence.
An Asian NATO is a myth. There is no common ground for Vietnamese, India, ASEAN countries to risk poking the dragon. Again, we need to progress beyond antiquated Cold War thinking and acknowledge the interrelated economics of the region with China as its historical “Middle Kingdom.” The economic ripple effects of any shooting war in the region would have catastrophic repercussions worldwide. Just as we learned to get along with Germany post WWII, we need to learn to find a mutual detente with China and give up the fantasy of a military solution.
Until we can spin up a domestic chip fabrication industry (which is what Biden's CHIPS Act is intended to start), our industries -- military and civilian both -- are heavily dependent on Taiwan. At present, Taiwan's ability and willingness to trade with us are essential to US national security.
"Spinning up domestic chip fabrication" will take years to accomplish. Why do you think only Taiwan has been able to do so with high grade chips? If we're so "heavily dependent on Taiwan for our military and civilian needs, why risk a military conflict that would surely disrupt our supplies? Damned if we do, damned if we don't. There might simply be no military solution to the dilemma and we might switch to cooperation and diplomacy instead.
We have been and should continue applying cooperation and diplomacy, but there is no guarantee that it will work. The Taiwanese do not want to join China, forcibly or otherwise -- they see very well how that went for Hong Kong and how much China's promise of "one country, two systems" was worth -- and if China invades Taiwan our other allies in the region will likely be drawn into the conflict as well. I suppose we could just renounce all interest in the region and abandon our allies, but even that is no guarantee of good relations with China. That strategy would just give up a great deal of our political capital and economic power unilaterally, handing China control of chip fabrication and our shipping connections with half of the world, and Xi Jinping seems far more likely to take that as exploitable weakness than respectful cooperation.
Well, I disagree a bit. Here is what we have at stake. We have made noises for decades about protecting Taiwan. Should we abandon Taiwan we will look like we did when Trump dumped the Kurds, and Biden dumped the Afghans. What will S Korea and Japan think about our nuclear umbrella...Is it good?
Trump doesn’t give two shits about promises. Harris will run from a war. What is left of our word?
Trump, not Biden, dumped the Afghans. He threw the 60,000-man Afghan Army into the shredder, after signing an agreement with the Taliban. We would withdraw all combat troops, in return for cutting off air support and logistics for our allies. Who, without air support and resupply, were systematically slaughtered.
Trump withdrew 90% of our combat troops by the time he'd left office. Leaving the final 10% as a poison pill for Biden.
We “abandoned Taiwan” when we embraced the “One China” concept. Officially, Taiwan doesn’t even exist - there is only one China. The writing is on the wall and rather than “abandoning” Taiwan (whose official name is the Republic of China) we embrace the reality of the People’s Republic of China as the dominant national force in the region. It is time for the old Chinese Civil War to be resolved and the U.S. does not need to be involved.
Decades ago we possibly could "protect" Taiwan, but China has become far more powerful in the ensuing decades and are more than a match for us on their home turf. I am reminded of the Mai Lai Massacre in Vietnam: "We had to destroy the village to save it." If we kept our word, what would be left of Taiwan?
yes, I should have said not of the same quality. However, diesel-electric electric can be quite silent. Machinery and propeller technology, which no doubt they have stolen from us.
Obviously you do not know what you're talking about. The Chinese have approximately as many subs as the U.S. has and newer too. The Chinese subs would have the home court advantage and there are probably more Chinese subs in the S. China Sea than U.S. subs there. Taiwan is just 100 miles off the coast of mainland China bristling with powerful electronic warfare assets. This is a fight the U.S. has already lost.
If Taiwan is invaded, USN SSN's *may* take a heavy toll of PLAN troop transports and other naval assets. My reading of Proceedings reflects a certain bullishness among USN submariners. Which may be just bravado. Or, authentic confidence, that assumes they'll be dishing out some serious hurt for minimal boat losses.
But once an invasion force lands, only a mass Ukraine-style mobilization of millions of militia infantry will be able to contain it.
And, that would be an act of war. What would the U.S. do if China decided to "block" the port of San Francisco? Do you know anything of the history of the Chinese Civil War, Formosia/Taiwan and China's "Century of Humiliation" from Western imperialism?
Gen. Douglas MacArthur advised JFK: "never get involved in a land war in Asia." The same holds true for a naval war...
Our SSN commanders are apparently not fond of allocating valuable space for both mines and Tomahawks, over torpedoes. Missile launches give away your position, while minelaying means going into more heavily patrolled areas close to harbors.
Unfortunately the US has a fairly significant cybersecurity worker shortage. It's been talking for years about correcting this without much implementation.
When talking about Chinese sea power it is good to take a look at the geography. China is sea locked on the east. Our submarines did a job on Japanese shipping in WW2. I expect every choke point is heavily instrumented. You can count them on this map. https://www.britannica.com/place/South-China-Sea
Which is why they're so keen to "liberate" Taiwan. That island is like a giant unsinkable aircraft carrier parked within easy striking distance of 70% of their industrial base.
Japan had that carrier and many "jeep" carriers in the pacific. They had bad experiences with the Jeeps. Taiwan like Ukraine is a threat because of the example they set.
Taiwan sits astride both the inner and outer chain PLAN defense lines. It's location--not its system of government--make it a strategic dagger pressed to Beijing's throat.
Having said that, the Chinese have a weird obsession about their "right" to possess Taiwan. Xi himself has said he wants his military bulked up enough that it can take the island by force by 2027.
The vulnerabilities of aircraft to getting caught on the ground by enemy aircraft is nothing like it was in WW2. The lethality of modern SAM systems would make Taiwan a no-fly zone for PLA/PLAN aircraft if, for example, a substantial US garrison were based there.
My thinking is that it is as you say, a dagger, but a social not a military dagger. No one is going to invade China. An old friend flew F86 fighters over the mainland during the Qumoy Matsu dust up. Those islands still sit a couple of miles off the mainland and they are Taiwanese.
The world now has a choice between a rules-based Pax Americana, or a totalitarian Communist Chinese model. Having spent 3 weeks in Hangzhou in '14 finishing a doctorate, I can say firsthand that the Chinese have done some amazing things in terms of economic development. But unlike us, the CCP does so by taking away people's rights, killing free speech, and ruling like kings who rule by fiat instead of consensus.
If allowed, they will take Taiwan by force. Then they'll do the same with the rest of Asia,; and then via their new Satrap Russia, with Europe. I'm with the USA on this one. Only a policy of US-led containment has any hope of preventing a world war.
That said, this scenario together with the quite similar one previously shared with Noah by this author, severely lacks a determinant factor; Air Force, airports and bases.
Does the USAF have enough assets able to fly from US/Hawaii/Guam etc. capable of going the distance? They would be vulnerable to the numerical superiority of the Chinese AF, as would the refueling tankers, which might be close to Chinese fire. Fixed air bases are easily hit by missiles. Carriers, if close enough for a battle are big targets.
We've got the talent to upgrade our capabilities but they're busy perfecting gaming, AI, and social media programming.
The article literally says that new AI capabilities are key to the future of EW.
Look to where the innovations came from, publically at least. It’s in the areas you decry. I think it’s a bit like establish another NASA, while Space X takes failures as a learning tool as bureaucracy fears criticism.
Yes. And computer gaming is a big part of what's driven both GPU and CPU chip architecture, and the coding that creates gaming "enemies" that learn from their mistakes--and yours--in real time.
We can scoff, or we can look closely at what makes FAANG so attractive to strong engineers and emulate it in the gov / defense industry
Nothing is more important than selling adverts!
Once a drone is cut off--by jamming--from its human controller, only an "AI" programmable series of "If A happens, do B" responses will allow it do its job. Which is usually target acquisition and/or evasion.
A good recent book on this topic is “Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War” by Shah and Kirchhoff https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199897959. It describes how the Defense Innovation Unit is finally using our strength in startups to get smart AI enhanced weapons and defenses in place over the objections of the legacy prime contractors, who are mostly skilled at selling big slow dumb and expensive weapons systems which are both weak and vulnerable as shown in Ukraine.
To be fair, of the kit we've shipped to Ukraine, some has been extremely effective. But Russian ECM/ECCM has also been evolving, rendering some systems--especially those that rely on GPS nav--pretty much useless.
But if you're making a critique of over-concentration in defense contractor market, I whole heartedly agree.
The problem with speculating and commenting on this topic is the same as that with cyber capabilities: Because of the extremely decisive nature of the weapons systems in question for either side, neither will ever reveal its full capabilities until it's FAR too late to speculate or comment on.
EW and cyber will indeed absolutely be UTTERLY decisive when the time comes for a conflict.
And we absolutely won't know which side will win until that conflict actually happens.
I disagree and believe we can predict some things because the laws of physics give us some reliable boundaries.
1) Optical and directional electromagnetic radiation can be used to communicate (e.g. between the ships in the articles scenario),
2) phased arrays can cancel out directional noise from jammers and so can mechanical filters (think directional shielding / amplification)
3) autonomous systems can operate without communication just like jet pilots can fly „silent missions“ today.
4) EMP shielding of electronics is sth that is old tech but might need some adaption to make it lightweight and mil-grade enough for low cost drones…
Together these can reliably disrupt the Chinese and if cash-efficient StartUps develop them, it can be available pretty quickly and affordably. That’s the authors main point and I 100% agree.
My point was that the state of art for ALL this tech is both insanely classified AND well beyond anything that we Muggles can have a meaningfully intelligent discourse about here on Al Gore's internet.
Phased arrays are already in use; that's what the AESAs are on literally every modern fighter and destroyer we make, and the team that made the AN/APG-81 for the F-35 in fact won some award for its performance against jamming. But that's about the extent of public knowledge! For entirely understandable reasons, we have ZERO clue about the full range of capabilities of the AN/APG-81 specifically, nor the rest of the F-35's EW suite, NOR of their Chinese counterparts.
It's all one big black box. The tech has either already been developed, or either side or both are bluffing; there's no point making a new startup to develop something DoD has probably been sitting on for 30 years. And the other reason there are no start-ups is because the minute you DO start working on some sort of Super-EW-Radar-Do-Everything-Device, the Feds show up and either hire you or shut you down.
Startups are cash-efficient because they operate out in the open market. Investors can come by and check out their product, and evaluate them quite brutally on whether it works or not. National defense is inherently NOT an open market. Whether it works or not, anyone who wants to evaluate the product has to be vetted for whether they're a security risk.
You may be overthinking this. Just like in the Spanish Civil War, both sides--Axis & Allies--were using the battlefield to test their newest weapons systems. And while it's *possible* some high-end systems (e.g., Patriots not able to successfully intercept hypersonic Zircons) are being intentionally handicapped for spooky natsec reasons, it's unlikely, as the success and failure rates of the varying contractor's weapons systems, will determine future contract procurement rates.
I think that's an overgeneralization. The SCW didn't have the US and UK deploying codebreakers or radar, for instance, let alone long-range bombers, night-fighters, nukes (obviously), or any of the other weapons that won WWII.
Likewise, we haven't deployed anything more advanced than aging F-16s to Ukraine. Patriots are ALREADY intercepting Zircons... but even if they weren't, I'm not claiming that HIMARS has some super-double-secret war reserve mode; I'm claiming that the F-35 almost certainly *does*. We already know that the US hasn't exported the full domestic capabilities of the F-35 to any of the partner countries, let alone demonstrate them on a battlefield.
Moreover, lest we overfocus on the F-35, there are dozens of other weapons systems whose abilities we've truly never demonstrated. And why would we? I'm not saying there are super-secret modes that aren't being used on weapons systems in Ukraine, I'm saying that a bare fraction of our weapons systems are even actually being USED there. We most certainly AREN'T testing our most important weapons on the highest-profile battlefield.
My point is, I'm not some gullible fanboy rube who thinks we've got all the best weapons hiding up our sleeves. It's entirely possible that EW in Taiwan will expose us as the emperor with no clothes, a paper tiger! But it's also entirely possible we bat away Chinese EW like a bad Star Trek plot. I'm just saying that because of how highly classified this shit is, it's not likely we'll know either way right up until the shots actually get fired.
And I'm not doing this out of "overthinking". Rather, I'm arguing this precisely because I think it's pointless to have a bunch of dumb discussions about technology we can't confirm exists or doesn't. I'm arguing AGAINST overthinking this. ANY conclusions we'd draw from such discussions would be fundamentally flawed, and would pave the way towards catastrophic miscalculations when the fateful day shots get fired actually comes.
They absolutely have war reserve modes
The big mistake is the Chinese counting on EW as not being seen as an act of war. Probably true under Biden or Harris, maybe not true under all future Presidents.
I wouldn't even make it about any specific president; I'd just say that they may be mis-estimating EW's escalatory capability in either direction.
In the bad direction... one of the famous things we know about the US military is that when a unit is cut off from our leadership, they sort of go into an autopilot mode. They'll follow their ROEs until events make it clear the ROEs are no longer appropriate; ditto their given objectives, etc. Americans are known to take initiative when orders are not clear! It's not hard to imagine that a blinded and deafened unit might see the EW as an act of war and make a mistake in a heightened state of alert.
On the other hand... we're also one of the obsessively-trained militaries in the world. We literally train for situations where we're deaf and blind. I could perhaps see the Chinese panicking when they notice us just treating their jamming like "business as usual" and switching to "Mark 1 Eyeball" like we were dutifully trained to. But it's not hard to imagine their EW just being a complete dud, and leading them to balk at a critical moment.
I am disappointed that the author says ‘be nimble’ and then…recommends more analog chips. Agility in the electromagnetic domain means using more advanced software-defined radios (SDRs) that can more nimbly hop across waveforms, phased arrays that can punch through noise, infrared transmission that is by definition immune to jamming, and (as mentioned) terminal autonomy for UAS.
The US is taking the lessons from Ukraine very seriously. I lost count at the number of well-funded startups run by serious people that are actively addressing this issue, as well as work by primes like L3Harris to adapt. Do we have more work to do? Absolutely. Skydio’s BlueUAS rollout in Ukraine was a disaster because of Russian EW, and DIU has multiple open topics on the issue.
A more interesting discussion is how the increasing ubiquity of SDRs and networked devices means the commercial telecom industry may leapfrog the defense sector. EW is in a sense a network congestion problem, and I will be surprised if militaries don’t find novel applications for emerging commercial 5G/6G technology
Nathan Mintz seems relevant here: https://bowoftheseus.substack.com/p/wsj-op-ed-the-future-of-warfare-is
Was going to recommend this exact op ed. I would also recommend Nathan's Substack.
Nathan is a great founder, excited for what he and Porter are building at CX2
This essay is very, very wrong in its assumptions and far too glib in its assessments. It doesn't look at the details of ongoing defense programs in EW, or understand what modern EW hardware looks like (mostly software). It doesn't understand what modern (and by modern I mean 80 year old) weapons actually use the electromagnetic spectrum for, or the capabilities of already deployed communications systems are. Oh and using a picture of radar jamming to illustrate (harder) communications jamming is just the brown M&M on top.
The US has had frequency hopping communications for at least 50 years. Missiles that hit their target without any external dependencies have been around for decades: Harpoon, NSM, Tomahawk all avoid dependencies on jammable things in some mission modes. Yes, GPS is great when you have it. But having a missile find its target without it is something we know how to do.
Modern transcever design is all digital, after a very small frontend. Whatever waveform, long range of frequencies to hop to, advanced DSP to do all that.
You can just look at the publicly available SIBR and DARPA programs and defense reports to get the picture of what the state of play is. This is embarrasingly shallow.
1. Excellent this is brought to the forefront by you.
2. I hope ship's crew still knows signaling.
3. Surface ships may need 3 mile long low frequency antennas like submarines to communicate.
4. The USN should have a permanent rotating port of call visit to Taiwan.
5. The large capital ships are too vulnerable in the Pacific if approaching China. Myriad small platforms are needed.
6. Between the military industrial complex and Republican unwillingness to advocate for Western democracy there appears no way to secure defense and deterrence. This is the underlying problem.
From my Proceedings (USN) subscription, the author's hypothetical scenario was not really plausible; as maybe a few DD's would be assigned to escort civvy container ships trying push their way past a PLAN ship blockade. While our SSN's lurk (hopefully) undetected nearby, using passive sonar.
Our carrier groups will be likely positioned hundreds of km. further offshore.
Interesting, thanks!
And loved the “simple diagram”😊
You start talking about autonomous AI driven laser and EW capabilities, and somehow SkyNet inevitably comes to mind.
You should have zero knowledge of our electronic warfare capbilities are. If you do, then a lot of folks should be fired. My guess we give the Ukrainians our old stuff. The Ukrainians can figure a lot of this out as the spectrum is out there to view.
The Air Force in particular has paid scant attention to electronic warfare (EW) over the last few decades as the fighter pilots who run the USAF consider it nerd stuff and besides, they have stealth to take of that anyways.
The Chinese also have a massive advantage in that they can create a specific, optimized EW system to counter every one of our emitters (radios, datalinks, radars, etc.) whereas our EW equipment has to be more generic to counter threats anywhere in the world (Russian, Chinese, our own stuff that we sold to people who are now not on friendly terms with us, etc.).
We have something the Chinese do not in the same quality. Submarines. Should China blockade Taiwan, the US should declare the South China Sea a war zone. Foreign Ships lose their insurance if they travel into a war zone. China has plenty of ships, but if we sink a few of them, how long can China sustain the war if it can no longer ship goods?
China will no doubt attempt to find and sink our submarines. China is just as vulnerable to EW as we are. What I really believe is that neither the Harris nor Trump Administration will come to Taiwan's defense. With Taiwan only 100 miles from the Chinese coast, we are at a huge disadvantage and have already lost Taiwan. They bought and have paid for $19 billion dollars worth of weapons which still have not been delivered. We need to make Taiwan a porcupine...we have failed.
"What I really believe is that neither the Harris nor Trump Administration will come to Taiwan's defense."
You say this like it is a 'bad thing'. We really don't have any business defending Taiwan except for some ideological mumbo-jumbo about "defending democracy" when we can't even defend it within our own nation. There is no ground swell urge to get involved in Taiwan and the weapons we sold them are not a threat to China or we wouldn't have risked selling to them. We have no dog in this fight and China knows this. "Coming to Taiwan's defense" is low priority for a majority of Americans and U.S. Navy commanders know it would be a suicide mission for them. Yeah, U.S. military defense companies are making a killing selling old hardware to Taiwan, but that is the limit of our national involvement.
That's certainly the assessment being sold on FOX News. That defending Taiwan, our diplomatic and military ally, isn't really our fight.
If Xi militarily conquers Taiwan--like Hitler did Czechoslovakia in '37--do you honestly think he'll stop there? Only a military alliance of US + ASEAN + Vietnam + India--where an attack on one, is an attack on all, will contain China. With Taiwan as a non-negotiable tripwire.
And only Harris and the Dems can deliver on creating that alliance.
Taiwan is a “non-negotiable tripwire” not for the U.S. but for China. You need to study up on the history of the Chinese Civil War and how Taiwan became a military dictatorship until recently. They are not our “allies” but a Cold War relic we use as a thorn in China’s side. Do has no intention of militarily invading Taiwan unless we force him to do so. This is a Chinese problem seeking a Chinese solution on Chinese time. Taiwanese speak, read, and write Chinese. Their culture and heritage are Chinese. Eventually, maybe a century from now, Taiwan will be reunited with the Mainland from which it was born. Our meddling does more harm than good and increases the chance of violence.
An Asian NATO is a myth. There is no common ground for Vietnamese, India, ASEAN countries to risk poking the dragon. Again, we need to progress beyond antiquated Cold War thinking and acknowledge the interrelated economics of the region with China as its historical “Middle Kingdom.” The economic ripple effects of any shooting war in the region would have catastrophic repercussions worldwide. Just as we learned to get along with Germany post WWII, we need to learn to find a mutual detente with China and give up the fantasy of a military solution.
Until we can spin up a domestic chip fabrication industry (which is what Biden's CHIPS Act is intended to start), our industries -- military and civilian both -- are heavily dependent on Taiwan. At present, Taiwan's ability and willingness to trade with us are essential to US national security.
"Spinning up domestic chip fabrication" will take years to accomplish. Why do you think only Taiwan has been able to do so with high grade chips? If we're so "heavily dependent on Taiwan for our military and civilian needs, why risk a military conflict that would surely disrupt our supplies? Damned if we do, damned if we don't. There might simply be no military solution to the dilemma and we might switch to cooperation and diplomacy instead.
We have been and should continue applying cooperation and diplomacy, but there is no guarantee that it will work. The Taiwanese do not want to join China, forcibly or otherwise -- they see very well how that went for Hong Kong and how much China's promise of "one country, two systems" was worth -- and if China invades Taiwan our other allies in the region will likely be drawn into the conflict as well. I suppose we could just renounce all interest in the region and abandon our allies, but even that is no guarantee of good relations with China. That strategy would just give up a great deal of our political capital and economic power unilaterally, handing China control of chip fabrication and our shipping connections with half of the world, and Xi Jinping seems far more likely to take that as exploitable weakness than respectful cooperation.
Well, I disagree a bit. Here is what we have at stake. We have made noises for decades about protecting Taiwan. Should we abandon Taiwan we will look like we did when Trump dumped the Kurds, and Biden dumped the Afghans. What will S Korea and Japan think about our nuclear umbrella...Is it good?
Trump doesn’t give two shits about promises. Harris will run from a war. What is left of our word?
Trump, not Biden, dumped the Afghans. He threw the 60,000-man Afghan Army into the shredder, after signing an agreement with the Taliban. We would withdraw all combat troops, in return for cutting off air support and logistics for our allies. Who, without air support and resupply, were systematically slaughtered.
Trump withdrew 90% of our combat troops by the time he'd left office. Leaving the final 10% as a poison pill for Biden.
We “abandoned Taiwan” when we embraced the “One China” concept. Officially, Taiwan doesn’t even exist - there is only one China. The writing is on the wall and rather than “abandoning” Taiwan (whose official name is the Republic of China) we embrace the reality of the People’s Republic of China as the dominant national force in the region. It is time for the old Chinese Civil War to be resolved and the U.S. does not need to be involved.
Decades ago we possibly could "protect" Taiwan, but China has become far more powerful in the ensuing decades and are more than a match for us on their home turf. I am reminded of the Mai Lai Massacre in Vietnam: "We had to destroy the village to save it." If we kept our word, what would be left of Taiwan?
Dude the PLAN has 79 subs to our 69.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army_Navy_Submarine_Force
our subs are better.
Granted, but you claimed they don’t even *have* subs. They clearly do.
yes, I should have said not of the same quality. However, diesel-electric electric can be quite silent. Machinery and propeller technology, which no doubt they have stolen from us.
Obviously you do not know what you're talking about. The Chinese have approximately as many subs as the U.S. has and newer too. The Chinese subs would have the home court advantage and there are probably more Chinese subs in the S. China Sea than U.S. subs there. Taiwan is just 100 miles off the coast of mainland China bristling with powerful electronic warfare assets. This is a fight the U.S. has already lost.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/submarines-by-country
If Taiwan is invaded, USN SSN's *may* take a heavy toll of PLAN troop transports and other naval assets. My reading of Proceedings reflects a certain bullishness among USN submariners. Which may be just bravado. Or, authentic confidence, that assumes they'll be dishing out some serious hurt for minimal boat losses.
But once an invasion force lands, only a mass Ukraine-style mobilization of millions of militia infantry will be able to contain it.
which was essentially my post.
however, I do believe we can blockade a port or a sea lane.
And, that would be an act of war. What would the U.S. do if China decided to "block" the port of San Francisco? Do you know anything of the history of the Chinese Civil War, Formosia/Taiwan and China's "Century of Humiliation" from Western imperialism?
Gen. Douglas MacArthur advised JFK: "never get involved in a land war in Asia." The same holds true for a naval war...
It’s pretty shallow water there - dangerous zone for subs because no thermoclines to hide under.
That is why our subs have mine laying ability.
Our SSN commanders are apparently not fond of allocating valuable space for both mines and Tomahawks, over torpedoes. Missile launches give away your position, while minelaying means going into more heavily patrolled areas close to harbors.
Unfortunately the US has a fairly significant cybersecurity worker shortage. It's been talking for years about correcting this without much implementation.
I was viewing a YouTube about the development of the sidewinder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWkMS7msV5Y
Seems the team was working on countermeasures as they were developing the missile.
The video starts with 1947, the years I was in grammar school.
When talking about Chinese sea power it is good to take a look at the geography. China is sea locked on the east. Our submarines did a job on Japanese shipping in WW2. I expect every choke point is heavily instrumented. You can count them on this map. https://www.britannica.com/place/South-China-Sea
Which is why they're so keen to "liberate" Taiwan. That island is like a giant unsinkable aircraft carrier parked within easy striking distance of 70% of their industrial base.
Japan had that carrier and many "jeep" carriers in the pacific. They had bad experiences with the Jeeps. Taiwan like Ukraine is a threat because of the example they set.
Taiwan sits astride both the inner and outer chain PLAN defense lines. It's location--not its system of government--make it a strategic dagger pressed to Beijing's throat.
Having said that, the Chinese have a weird obsession about their "right" to possess Taiwan. Xi himself has said he wants his military bulked up enough that it can take the island by force by 2027.
The vulnerabilities of aircraft to getting caught on the ground by enemy aircraft is nothing like it was in WW2. The lethality of modern SAM systems would make Taiwan a no-fly zone for PLA/PLAN aircraft if, for example, a substantial US garrison were based there.
My thinking is that it is as you say, a dagger, but a social not a military dagger. No one is going to invade China. An old friend flew F86 fighters over the mainland during the Qumoy Matsu dust up. Those islands still sit a couple of miles off the mainland and they are Taiwanese.
China wants to be a hegemon. like the US.
The world now has a choice between a rules-based Pax Americana, or a totalitarian Communist Chinese model. Having spent 3 weeks in Hangzhou in '14 finishing a doctorate, I can say firsthand that the Chinese have done some amazing things in terms of economic development. But unlike us, the CCP does so by taking away people's rights, killing free speech, and ruling like kings who rule by fiat instead of consensus.
If allowed, they will take Taiwan by force. Then they'll do the same with the rest of Asia,; and then via their new Satrap Russia, with Europe. I'm with the USA on this one. Only a policy of US-led containment has any hope of preventing a world war.
Interesting reading and dire conclusions from it.
That said, this scenario together with the quite similar one previously shared with Noah by this author, severely lacks a determinant factor; Air Force, airports and bases.
These need to be included in such analysis.
Does the USAF have enough assets able to fly from US/Hawaii/Guam etc. capable of going the distance? They would be vulnerable to the numerical superiority of the Chinese AF, as would the refueling tankers, which might be close to Chinese fire. Fixed air bases are easily hit by missiles. Carriers, if close enough for a battle are big targets.
If the balloon truly goes up, it'll be a World War. Japanese, S. Korean, and Philippines airfields will be where the USAF operates out of.
Our Carrier BG's will likely be positioned very far out.
Our SSN's will be the tip of the spear, doing much of the heavy lifting.