Electronic Warfare as America’s Strategic Advantage

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Col. Aaron T. Gray:

All right, welcome everyone. We got some superhero walk-up music. It’s not quite Highway to the Danger Zone, but I guess it’ll have to do. Welcome to the Electronic Warfare as America’s Strategic Advantage panel. I’ll be the moderator today, Colonel Aaron Gray, and we’ll introduce our panelists here in a second. First, I’ll introduce myself. I’m the commander of the 55th Wing at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. We, as you know, fly both the E-37B Compass Call, also known as the Banshee, and the fleet of RC-135 aircraft. So we jam and we collect throughout the spectrum. I’ll go ahead and turn it over to Ms. Shalini Gupta. Ma’am, please introduce yourself.

Shalini Gupta:

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. I’m Shalini Gupta, and I’m the vice president for electronic warfare and targeting at Northrop Grumman. So my team and I, we take great pride in developing EW solutions for multiple platforms and mission. And what motivates us is that we want to ensure that our warfighters can accomplish their missions and come home safely. So I wanna take a moment to thank all the warfighters in the room. Thank you for your service. It’s truly an honor to support your mission, and looking forward to the dialogue today.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Next.

Patrick Creighton:

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. I’m Pat Creighton. I’m the vice president and general manager of L3Harris’ electronic warfare portfolio. It’s a very broad electronic portfolio. We support a lot of multi-domain missions for our domestic warfighters, as well as a number of our international allies. I spent the last 20 years in the RF community, very excited to be here talking about this topic. I’m ultra passionate about it, so thank you, Colonel.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Thank you. Thanks, Pat. And Dave?

Dave Harrold:

Hi, I’m Dave Harrold. I’m the vice president and general manager of our countermeasure and electromagnetic attack business at BAE Systems. You saw on some of the videos there where we do a lot of work in the EW domain, both on the RF and the EOIR sides of the house across the spectrum. And we’re on quite a number of platforms in the Department of War. I’ve been at BAE Systems for 21 years, and I’m a retired information warfare officer from the United States Navy.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Fantastic, thank you. And then the individual that gets the award for longest distance travel to get here from Southern California, Jordan Riedel. Go ahead, Jordan.

Jordan Riedel:

Thank you, Colonel Gray. And I wanted to say thank you to AFA for allowing us to be on the panel. Thank you to all the war fighters out there. Really appreciate all you do for our nation. And I started my career out at SSC in Los Angeles. It was SMC at the time. Have bounced around that command for quite some time. Came out to Virginia for a while and spent some time at the Pentagon. Then moved back to Los Angeles where I was introduced to the EW capability area. I helped stand up the first EW system Delta for the Space Force back in 2022. But I’m currently at SPA Systems Planning and Analysis as their Director of EW Mission Systems. We do some small capability development for the Navy through Model Sim and Wargaming. And we also do some database development for the Space Force itself. But happy to be here.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

All right, thank you, everyone. So the EW influencers have assembled. Now let’s get into the discussion. Question one, in the context of strategic advantage, in the spectrum, strategic advantage requires integration across the joint force between coalition partners. The Department of War has open architecture and data formatting standards. How does this enable industry to produce equipment that integrates across services and platforms?

Shalini Gupta:

I can start at least.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Please, go ahead, Shalini.

Shalini Gupta:

So open architecture, I think is gonna become critical for us to keep pace with the rapidly evolving threats. And so the approach that we’re taking at Northrop Grumman is the one of software defined, hardware enabled, where the underlying hardware foundation, it has the capacity and flexibility to take on more functionality through software insertions, kind of like your phone where you spiral in apps as you want more capability.

So an example of where we’re doing that right now is the IVU’s electronic warfare suite for F-16, which will be open architecture compliant. And then as threats evolve, there’ll be a need to bring a new capability ’cause the reality is we can’t predict the future, right? We don’t know what all the threats are gonna be, so we have to remain agile. And those solutions can be developed by industry, by government. And then as we get more and more systems that are open architecture compliant and more data formats are aligned, that will enable that information sharing, and it will also enable us to have interoperability.

But one of the barriers today I think that has been is that you can have boxes that are compliant to the same open architecture standard, but then there’s so much customization at the lower levels that they don’t truly interoperate. So that’s something that we’ll just have to reinforce is that it’s not only the interfaces, but all the way through, we’re compliant, so our systems can have that cross-tack, so we can have the full battlespace information and take that advantage of the joint force.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Thank you, I appreciate that. So, along the lines of Big Iron, which is separating the mission application from the hardware itself, allowing greater flexibility and speed to the warfighter. Anyone else wanna take a stab at that question?

Dave Harrold:

Yeah, I’d like to add on to that what Shalini has said, and specifically around the coalition enabling piece. We have a good example with the EA-37B, Aaron, which you know very well, where it’s going fully software-defined radios and really enabling that speed of bringing new skills to the fight. And as you may have seen, we’re actually selling a couple of EA-37Bs to Italy. And so, that really is a great example of where we will be able to quickly share, through that software-defined and open architecture, different skills for different threat scenarios across coalition partners and really be able to share the load of that mission set.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Well, I’ll add there, Dave. You know, having witnessed firsthand everything that was going on during Enduring Freedom, learning new tricks was, there was an insatiable need for learning new tricks on a weekly basis. And so, I can’t wait to hear what Italian tricks look like. All right, anyone else wanna take a stab at that question?

Patrick Creighton:

Yeah, I’ll make a couple comments there. So, agree very much with my peers here on the stage. L3Harris is taking a similar approach. You know, we view the vast proliferation of the number of platforms out there, the variety of payloads out there as really necessitating the adoption of open architecture standards. They need to be ultimately interoperable, they need to be upgradable. You know, our mantra is any system, any payload, any customer, any situation, right? You know, the discriminators, you know, will be best of breed technologies that the coalition forces will be able to select and install into their platforms.

But I think open architecture is really important to us as well because it allows us, as L3Harris, and hopefully industry, to invest more proactively, more prudently, right? We can start developing capabilities, skills, ahead of needs, in anticipation of the future fight. And recognizing that those skills can then be adopted onto a myriad of different payloads or platforms when the time arises. And we’re demonstrating this today with our modular EW portfolio.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

That’s great. You know, another kind of legacy thing that I saw in Enduring Freedom was lots of big boxes coming out of dusty closets that had been developed over the years. And unfortunately, some of them were far too large to fit on to most aircraft that we have. And so the efforts that you all are making, the investments you’re making with open systems, architecture, software-defined radios, all those things are gonna pay big dividends in the future. Go ahead, yes, please.

Jordan Riedel:

You know, at SPA, we’re looking at, I mentioned mod and sim and BSE type work. We’re looking at, you know, how do we project further out into the future? You know, beginning the acquisition cycles with those requirements in mind, and how we can influence them with our predicted sustainment models, and how we look at sustainment tails on aircraft, on ships, on, well, spacecraft in general. But to what my colleagues have said, you know, open systems architecture, it’s challenging, it’s complex. We’re always going to bring new ideas from industry into the workforce.

I would just lobby that we stick to what government requirements there are and help influence those as we move through the acquisition cycles.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

All right, thank you. Let’s move on to the next question. Across the street from my office is a place called United States Strategic Command, and many don’t know this, but they have the Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations Center there, the JEC, which is the executive agent in the DOW for electronic warfare. And so I would be remiss if I didn’t ask the following question about deterrence. Strategic advantage requires deterrence. U.S. industry has long produced some of the most sought-after equipment in the world. In fact, just this week, the Secretary of the Air Force, Dr. Troy Meink, said, “The U.S. has the most innovative people, “research institutions, cultures, “and industry in the world.” Congratulations, you guys. That’s my ad.

And the team we have in the DAF is really unmatched anywhere. So in the context of our ability to produce amazing hardware and software, given the people that we have here, what does that do as, how does that function as a deterrent, and what investments is industry making now to continue enabling strategic deterrence in the spectrum? Go ahead. But Jordan’s got it. Go ahead, Jordan.

Jordan Riedel:

So from a strategic deterrence perspective, I’ve always thought to myself when it comes to EW that sometimes the best defense is a good offense. And having those TTPs set up to where we can impact what our adversaries are doing in the battlefield is key to how we’re going to win the war. Today, lessons learned from the current conflicts, our targeting isn’t as it was expected to be and how we approach the multi mini versus mini approach to our con ops. So that’s something we need to look at and something that could, if we message it in the appropriate way, could be an awfully good deterrence.

Dave Harrold:

Yeah, I think this is a bit of a tricky one sometimes because showing deterrence through flyovers of aircraft or projecting power through aircraft carriers or showing kinetic strikes, that’s a little bit different than showing your EW capability. And so I think the way we show deterrence in that domain without giving away the kinds of things that we’re doing to create overmatch, it really is, Aaron, what you’ve talked about, which is how do we continue to push the envelope of innovation? How do we continue to attract the best and brightest into the aerospace and defense industry? Because that’s where some pretty amazing technology and innovation is happening.

And so I think it’s about building the workforce. It’s about attracting the talent. It’s about really showing and talking about, to the extent that we’re comfortable, what those capabilities continue to grow across the EW domain.

Patrick Creighton:

I think I would add to that, part of deterrence is our ability to feel things quickly. It is still a very long acquisition cycle. There’s a lot of reform taking place to kind of close that gap, to push out new capabilities sooner, but it is still taking too long. And the reality is our adversaries see that. Our adversaries don’t play by those same rules. We need to evaluate the test requirements necessary to actually field new capabilities, maybe crawl, walk, run, put out, I’ll say more prototype systems or prototype capabilities, see how they’re performing in the field rather than waiting five plus years for the perfect solution.

And I’ll extend that one step further to our international allies and coalition partners. That process is significantly more challenging. It is taking an entirely too long to field systems internationally. And where traditionally we saw the US as kind of the early adopters of systems and the international coalition partners taking those systems and then fielding them, we’re starting to see the international partners push ahead of those timelines and try to adopt systems even faster than the US government is adopting them. So we do need to figure out how we push through those hurdles faster and get those capabilities in their hands. Because when you really think about it, pushing these modern systems out to our international partners actually improves us as a whole strategically from a deterrence perspective because we have more systems that are interoperable, more systems that are open, more systems that are upgradable, more systems that are agile.

Shalini Gupta:

I’ll just build off of what my peers said here. So agreed, talent is absolutely the key to innovation. And I know all of us are looking to attract and retain the best talent. And then it’s how do we get those solutions out there quickly as was said earlier. So one of the approaches that we’re taking is actually doing product line building block solutions. There is only so many people that we have and so much time and resources to mature technologies.

How can we ensure that our designs are modular so when we build them, they can scale to multiple platforms and multiple missions. And so that’s where as we’re doing these building blocks, it also really helps with the supply base because they’re able to do volume procurement, that we’re able to do volume production. So I think we have to look at the full life cycle from design, manufacturing, supply chain test, and how can we all move faster together ’cause they’re all critical pieces to get capability out quickly.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Thank you. It’s a little bit similar to the discussion about precision munitions and missile defense in that we need low cost, high precision at scale. Some of the terms that the Air Force has put out recently, persistent, adaptable, modular, layered with increased capacity. So basically we want it all. We wanna have our cake and eat it too, right? And so I know that you all are gonna deliver.

Question three here talks about the contested spectrum. What does the department and industry need to do to increase advantage in a future contested spectrum?

Dave Harrold:

Yeah, I’ll take a stab at that a little bit. One of the things as we think about a peer-to-peer environment and, you know, as you discussed, highly contested, particularly in the electronic warfare spectrum, you know, we talk a lot about the use of commercial off the shelf. We talk about affordable and how that can be an advantage to us.

One of the challenges with commercial off the shelf is that I can buy it and so can my adversary buy it. And so where is my overmatch opportunity there? And so, you know, Shalini talked about hardware-enabled, you know, software-defined, hardware-enabled. And, you know, I think that highly contested peer-to-peer, we have to continue to find ways to have that overmatch, whether it’s, you know, having the best, developing the best skills that will ride on that hardware, or, in some cases, understanding that, particularly for more exquisite capabilities to enable exquisite missions, we may not be able to do the commercial off the shelf.

I think the other thing that’s happened, the other dynamic around that that’s happening today is there’s tremendous strain on the supply chain across the board. And so when we’re thinking about COTS components, you know, other industries are looking for those same components, and lead times are pushing out, and I think we’ve all already mentioned the importance of speed, of delivery of capability to the warfighter, and the ability to react in a very dynamic environment.

So I think there’s something there around how do we, in a peer environment, highly contested, how do we continue to find innovative ways to create overmatch for ourselves so that it’s not a fair fight, that it’s never a fair fight?

Shalini Gupta:

Yeah, I would say that, you know, for us, I feel like by definition, we’re designing for those scenarios because we know we’ll be operating in those contested environments. So one of the approaches we’ve adopted is doing these ultra-wideband architectures because the threats now span a wide frequency space, and so we have to be able to detect and ID them.

And it’s not only just hardware and software. I think that actually validating and testing our products very thoroughly before they go to deployment is key. And so what we’ve been doing is testing with the lab-generated threats using our combat environment electromagnetic simulator, CSIM, where we actually inject our threats into the product to see if it performs as intended. We take it out to the range and test it against joint threat emitter to see if it actually performs well against those live threats. Because the idea is we have to catch these issues in the development cycle, so when it goes to flight test, it performs as intended. And I think reliability, stability of the system is absolutely key.

You know, when your laptop resets, it’s very frustrating, but we can’t have hardware reset in the field, right? That would be catastrophic. So ensuring, like, from the moment we design it to field it, that we’ve done all the checkboxes and compliance to ensure that it will work as intended is absolutely critical.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Well, you all have really, you know, talked quite a bit about the industry side. I’m obviously representing the department side. I want to hear from you. Tell me about what the department can do better for you so that you can then do the things that you just talked about. You know, let me frame it in the context of outcomes versus requirements. Anyone have any thoughts on that? Go ahead.

Patrick Creighton:

So, maybe one of the things worth talking about has come up a number of times in discussions we’ve had just throughout the last few days here is as we adopt these open architectures and the price point of the hardware has come down significantly in many cases, and it’s always going to be a combination of things, we need to have more discussions, you know, with industry and the government of how, then, do you deploy capabilities? How do you procure the capability, the software, right? I mean, that’s not traditionally been industry’s business model. I mean, it’s been hardware with software capabilities, right? Not just selling software or software as a service. And we’re getting a lot of mixed messaging, mixed messaging even within the services themselves. Nobody exactly knows how to do that. I know there’s a number of white paper circulating with thoughts, but we’ll hear, you know, from one side that says absolutely unobtainable, can’t do this model. The other side’s going, yes, this is the model we want, but won’t do the other one. We really could use some guidance from the government as to how they expect to procure software in the future.

Jordan Riedel:

When it comes to spectrum management, you know, there’s one big challenge that I faced under my government service time was the interoperability of systems with the spectrum and with one another. So you’re back in C2’s functions, and that’s been one of the biggest challenges in the DOW for years, is how to figure that out. Secondly, it’s sharing the spectrum. And so we don’t see it that often because it’s more of the invisible war, but for those behind the scenes working any sort of RF or any sort of spectrum concepts, you see it’s sometimes crowded, and we need to figure out ways to not walk all over each other when we’re going to war. And in order to do that, we really need to look at how we train and how we get ready to fight the fight. It comes down to getting the reps in with our operational teams, and that means allowing the acquirers to be part of that team, allowing the test community part of that team, and making sure that we are going into it as one force package.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Yeah, so better processes for software procurement, better training and exercises. I think we all agree with that. I’ll tell you, every time we take the Compass Call to an exercise and it goes buzzer on, creates a lot of problems, right? And so that’s a difficult problem to solve, right? Because it has effects on red and blue, right? At the same time, and red’s not there, so then only blue gets affected. And so definitely trying to figure out how to better exercise these capabilities and test them amongst the forces is something that we will continue to work on. Dave, you had something you wanted to say?

Dave Harrold:

Yeah, if I can add a thought there. We talk in terms of kill chains or more likely kill webs these days, and they’re very dynamic and they come in lots of different components and pieces and more and more, we’re realizing there is no one silver bullet that breaks the web or breaks the chain. It’s going to have to be sort of a death by a thousand cuts approach to disrupt and deny and defeat the adversary’s kill web. I think oftentimes though, when we think about requirements for a new system, we’re trying to jam everything in there to do the whole mission by itself. Every individual new system that comes out and that’s just not sustainable anymore, right?

We need to come forward with an iterative approach. We need to come forward with, hey, this one thing that I need to get in the field now because it’s better than anything they have out there is only gonna get me a piece of the kill web, but it’s an important piece of the kill web. And we’re gonna give ourselves the ability to bring more capability and be even more adaptable in the future. I think we often find ourselves in these situations where we struggle because there’s a corner of the envelope requirement that gets baked in that drives cost and schedule. And if we could sort of understand that if I can just get something out quickly and be mindful about being iterative and being mindful about it’s gonna take a whole bunch of different kinds of bullets to defeat this kill web rather than one silver bullet to defeat it by itself.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Yeah, absolutely. So that would improve speed, it would bring down cost. In economics, we say the corner solution is rarely the optimal solution. So you gotta get somewhere in the middle, somewhere somewhat less than everything all at once. Go ahead, Shalini.

Shalini Gupta:

I was just gonna add. So because we have the ability to spiral in capabilities, understanding the prioritization of the threats is important, but also getting the feedback from the field is gonna be equally important. We need to understand how our systems are performing, what’s not working, so we can make those quick updates and get it back out there.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Fantastic. The feedback, ma’am, I think is actually gonna be the easiest part. We have lots of captains and NCOs that like to give feedback. And luckily for us, we work with Big Safari, and Big Safari, as you know, gets stuff fast and works with you all very quickly to make adjustments. So I think that’s one thing that we will continue to do that we do well now and we’ll continue to do it again in the future.

Let’s talk about electromagnetic battle management, non-kinetic battle management in the midst of a highly degraded environment. What do we need to do to give ourselves the best shot at being able to manage the spectrum in a contested environment? Thoughts on that.

Patrick Creighton:

So maybe I’ll start with saying, you know, again, it goes back to layered multi-domain effects, kill webs, right? I mean, we recognize the spectrum is gonna be degraded, some cases denied. So having, you know, the proliferation of different assets out there is gonna be critical. But then you need the ability to command and control them, right? Particularly the non-kinetic sensors and effectors. And that’s where we at L3Harris have spent a lot of our time focused on the orchestration of these non-kinetic sensors and effectors through our EMBM system called DISCO. And the whole concept behind that is moving very limited amounts of data from the distributed non-kinetic sensors and effectors across the pipe, getting feedback, rapidly iterating on the feedback we’re receiving, often making use of AI tools or machine learning, and then rapidly reconfiguring systems that are in the field or deployed, such that, you know, potentially our higher valued assets, our manned platforms are then able to be more survivable as they start to penetrate enemy airspace.

Dave Harrold:

Yeah, Aaron, you mentioned a couple of times, both in your own experience in Enduring Freedom and sort of exercises that, for instance, Compass Call is involved in is, you know, it is very easy in such a congested spectrum to make the wrong moves and disable our own blue forces and, you know, really get things confused. So thinking about this deliberately from a very robust, you know, multi-domain, how do I make sure that I’m taking in all the inputs and I’m understanding how I can manage the use of that spectrum to its optimal effect, both for survivability of blue and for prosecution of red. And, you know, I know there’s a lot of good work going on there, starting to test machine-to-machine interfaces and what can be automated and how all of this congested, dynamic, always-moving information can be enabled, maybe, perhaps, by artificial intelligence and things.

I think it is going to be such a critical part of prepping the battlefield and executing the non-kinetic missions, which are, as we’ve seen in recent operations, absolutely critical to the success of these missions that we’re executing. So more to follow there, but certainly that this is a space where we need to all collectively double down and understand what are the tools available to us to really enable that battle management in the spectrum.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

All right, anyone else wanna tackle that one? Go ahead, Jordan.

Jordan Riedel:

Yeah, I’m gonna offer up a simple example, and I’m gonna use the audience if that’s okay. Pretend that we’re all sitting on a panel in a room listening to a panel, and all of a sudden, all of our cell phone signals go out, or your cell phone signal is now on his cell phone. What would we do? Because we’ve never worked together, well, most of us have never worked together, we would probably try and exit the room and figure out what’s going on with our cell phones. Why is this happening to us? And so in an operational scenario, when signals are denied or degraded, you really have to have those secondary effects and secondary resiliency pieces in your architecture that really keep the operational unit together, because it can get very chaotic in a wartime scenario very fast. And so allowing ourselves to be ready for that fight is where we’re going to have to focus the most in order to pivot in times of degradation.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

What I heard you say is practice, practice, practice, rehearsal, Red Flag, Bamboo Eagle, all these things. All right, you all brought up the topic that is everywhere on all social media and all forms of media right now, which is artificial intelligence. As I was preparing for this panel, I asked artificial intelligence to give me a summary of everything EW that was discussed during this AFA. And it talked about the integration between air, space, cyber, that there’s really no difference and it’s all one. And then it said that this panel was going to be happening and it listed all of our panel members. And it said it was gonna be moderated by Brigadier General, parentheses, maybe Major General Gray.

So AI is always improving and it’s improving at a breakneck speed. Given the strengths of AI and some of the weaknesses of AI, what role can it play in assisting human operators in improving EW outcomes and achieving strategic advantage? And I know Shalini is locked and loaded on this one. Go ahead, ma’am.

Shalini Gupta:

All right, so I am very excited about AI ’cause I think it can be a big force multiplier for helping us to understand that complex battle space at machine speed. So as we talked about, there is a lot of data coming in from the threats, right? And so there’s a lot of data that we have to detect, parse, and ID through. And AI can definitely help with that. But what I would like to see is like, we take it one step further. Use AI to understand the other variables that are involved. How is the platform behaving? What environment are we operating in? What has this emitter done historically to understand the emitter intent? Because by understanding that, we can determine the right courses of action.

So I view that AI will be a good decision aid tool, but then the warfighter will always remain in the loop, right, because you talked about what is the weakness. And the weakness is how do you learn to trust all the data that’s coming your way and the decisions. And with time, I do think that the AI tools will get more robust. I’m hoping that they will come with confidence metrics that will say, hey, I’m 90% confident that this data that I’m sending you is right, because I’ve seen it before. I’m 10% confident this time because I haven’t seen it before. So you can put some guardrails around it. But I do think that AI will be a key enabler. And then it will be the warfighter can make the critical decisions on how to act given the consequence of it. But the goal would be to reduce the cognitive burden.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

That’s fantastic. Speed and its ability to make inferences based on context, empowering warfighters to make final decisions. I love that. Go ahead, Pat.

Patrick Creighton:

Yeah, let me take a slightly different view of that. I actually think AI starts to remove the warfighter from in the loop and puts them on the loop, right? In the loop kind of puts them in that critical path. You want to make use of AI, do as much of the decision-making process in advance, but then give the operator the ability to effectively override the AI system or affect a decision. That’s how we’re going to adapt real-time at the speed of war. In the future, you may remove the operator from the loop entirely.

Now that’s fraught with a lot of questions, and then I think that really gets to how do you build trust in models? And I kind of equate that to self-driving vehicles, as those came out. Anybody who has that in their car, and a lot of the cars have at least some level of this now, taking your hands off the wheel at 70 miles an hour is kind of a daunting proposition. To trust that the AI tools, the software in there is accurate and is going to keep you safe. Well, now you extend that to weapon systems, and that’s just a whole ‘nother level of trust. And so really you have to start thinking about how do you build trust into the AI systems? How do you model it? How do you train it? And then how do you retrain it and continue to retrain it and continue to model it? Because it will drift, and building that confidence is gonna be a big challenge. I don’t know exactly how we’re gonna do it. I’m not sure anybody can answer that. It’s moving so quickly, but it’s there. It’s here, and we’re gonna need to figure it out.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

It’s super powerful, no doubt about it. Anyone else? Jordan?

Jordan Riedel:

Pat, I agree. You gotta get it in the hands of the operators. I think it was Secretary Meink on Monday who said, as fast as possible, we need to get AI tools into our operators’ hands. And if they don’t have the ability to train themselves on how to simply ask AI questions, for instance, or direct AI in a certain way to get to an answer that they need, they’re not gonna be able to use it. And so you see that in society today, where you have the experts of AI that are all about it, and they use it almost in every aspect of life.

And then you have the folks out in society that don’t touch it. And we have to bridge that gap within the DOW at large. And that comes down to just awareness and training, and again, getting the troop ready for the fight.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Thanks, you guys. All right, let’s wrap it up with a final question. This one’s pretty broad. We have three minutes left. What lessons from current conflicts can we incorporate into the future of EW? We’ve talked about some of it. Any other salient points out there you all wanna address?

Patrick Creighton:

I think I’ll just, I’ll say one thing. I think most recent conflict has showed us, well, one, you obviously have to be agile, but more importantly, our kinetic magazine is finite. We have got to make use of EW in all of our systems. Wherever possible, non-kinetic effects need to be the priority to limit the use of the kinetic effects. Those need to be our last resort. So I think there’s just such an importance on EW today, and we’ve really got to accelerate that into everything we’re doing. Integrated into force architecture and not appended late.

Dave Harrold:

Yeah, I mean, I think that just to build upon that, I think that particularly we see that coming out of affordable mass, particularly what’s happening in Ukraine. I mean, just sheer numbers become a challenge itself, and there’s no way you can address that threat through kinetic means, ’cause you’ll never have the magazine that can keep up with that.

So to your very good point, figuring out how electronic warfare and non-kinetic is no longer just a support mechanism. It has to become, in many cases, the primary offense in order to defeat some of these emerging threats that are there.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Go ahead, Jordan.

Jordan Riedel:

One thing I took away from current conflict and conflicts in the past, if an EW asset in the field, in theater, goes down and is rendered completely useless, what do you do? And so building that resiliency in the architecture up front and making sure that the assets are in theater to support that resiliency architecture is key.

Col. Aaron T. Gray:

Yeah, thank you. We definitely need to have a system of systems approach. We need to have more things able to maneuver through the spectrum. We’re gonna go ahead and wrap it up here with less than a minute to go. And I just wanna say on a personal note, thank you to our panelists.

Thank you for choosing to serve your country through your engineering expertise, knowledge, and know-how to provide us, the warfighter, with the technologies to go out there and support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Thank you guys very much. Thank you for attending.