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The Art Of Spectrum Warfare: Essays On Our Current Military Revolution, Vol. I

www.polemology.net

The Art Of Spectrum Warfare: Essays On Our Current Military Revolution, Vol. I

An annotated link post

Matt Osborne
Jan 31
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The Art Of Spectrum Warfare: Essays On Our Current Military Revolution, Vol. I

www.polemology.net

We are alive during the spectrum revolution in military affairs. Almost everyone who fights in a war today is connected somehow, in some way, by radio and radar technology. On a simple casualty basis, it is already the deadliest technology in the history of humankind.

As a nation of islands, Indonesia is a very different communication environment from Poland or the Russian pale. Radio and radio telephony were essential to the events of the 1 October coup, the defeat of that coup during the first day, the propagandizing incitement and coordination of militia networks to commit mass murders, the passage of orders regarding genocidal mass arrests and disappearances of prisoners, and then the movement of remaining prisoners from island to island.

Polemology Positions
A Secret History of the Indonesian Genocide
In an effort to keep their Holocaust a secret, the Nazi extermination program sent and received orders by landline wire communications, which were more secure than wireless. A radio station inside of a death camp would be inviting another Sobibor uprising, except the prisoners would be sending out messages to the world instead of blowing up a gas chambe…
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a year ago · 1 like · Matt Osborne

During the famous July Crisis, radio acted as a lubricant on the slippery slope to war. Signals were intercepted, spurring other signals, which were intercepted in turn, spurring further signals in a feedback loop of decision. If we were to write the First World War as a streaming cable series, the episode in which the war breaks out would be a radio play.

Polemology Positions
The Wireless First World War: A Series
Before radio technology was invented, an extensive military intelligence bureaucracy had already become the norm in European land armies. This was a new phenomenon in the world, one with social and political implications that became visible in the most infamous miscarriage of justice at the turn of the century…
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a year ago · Matt Osborne

Ukraine benefits most from help doing the things they can’t do for themselves — like airborne early warning, command and control, loitering operations, and so on — that America and their Atlantic alliance partners are very good at. Radio energy is a supreme force multiplier that leaves no physical trace evidence to empower Russian escalations.

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Polemology Positions
Maybe Ukraine Doesn't Need A NATO No-Fly Zone Because They Already Have One?
The USS Harry S. Truman is operating in the Adriatic. The ship’s Twitter account recently posted this photo of a powerful new E-2D Hawkeye. These planes have the range to make a round trip from the ship’s catapults to Kyiv. With some NATO refueling aircraft and secure strips in Romania or Poland in case of emergency, one US Navy carrier can keep a small…
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a year ago · 1 like · Matt Osborne

Although this has been a decentralized, amateur effort, the signal interference and broadcast propaganda work on Russian forces because they are still using more or less the same tactical radio technology that Stalin put into the T-34 tank. Underlining just how backwards and feeble Russian tactical comms have become, Ukrainian armed forces are winning with a (relatively cheap) combination of western military tech and commercial smart phones to operate safely within the thicket of resistance.

Polemology Positions
The Thornbush Is In Bloom: Crowdsourced Spectrum Dominance in Ukraine
When Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy began tweeting video challenges from Kyiv, cocky and winking at the camera, it struck me as more than an audacious act. As long as Russian columns were stuck to the roads in spring mud, pushing forward with maximal useless destruction at the end of their logistical tether, they remained vulnerable to flanking…
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a year ago · 4 likes · Matt Osborne

The North Korean invasion had been a surprise. The Chinese invasion was not a surprise, but its strength was surprising. In each case, the keystone American policy-maker’s key information filter reflected and amplified his biases.

Polemology Positions
All Quiet On The Yalu Front
Rugged terrain makes the Korean peninsula a tricky environment for ground-based radio direction finding. Nevertheless, the Army Security Agency (ASA) spun up a substantial signals intelligence (SIGINT) operation in six weeks, proved vital to…
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a year ago · 1 like · 8 comments · Matt Osborne

Within a week of the invasion, AFSA had identified a military network of 30 outstations and their sub-networks. It was the principle command net of the NKPA. By this means, AFSA identified the entire NKPA order of battle and the G-2 (intelligence section) at Eighth Army headquarters in Korea could track the movements of every unit in the attacking army down to their logistical timetables.

Polemology Positions
How 'Mistakes Were Made' In 1950
Just hours after North Korean forces crossed the 38th Parallel in a surprise attack on 25 June 1950, a flight of RB-29s in the 31st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (see above photo) left Okinawa for Japan. One of these refueled and took off again for an immediate electronic intelligence (ELINT) overflight of the peninsula. “Almost certainly it was the…
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a year ago · Matt Osborne

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This is an electronic warfare version of the cope cage. I confidently predict it will not achieve any purpose, serving only as target practice for Ukrainian gunners. Nothing Ukrainians might use, or have used already against that bridge, uses radar for guidance. If that was their intention, then Russia is trying to win an electronic battle that no one else is fighting.

Polemology Positions
An Electronic Warfare Cope Cage. LOL
When Russian columns got stuck on their way to Kyiv, many tanks and armored vehicles had ‘cope cages’ mounted on them. These were lattice metalwork improvisations welded from scrap steel and such. They were intended to make modern antitank missiles detonate prematurely. They didn’t work. At all. But they were a great way to keep a lot of Russians busy p…
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8 months ago · 1 like · Matt Osborne

Radio waves do not go zoom, or boom, or pew-pew-pew. They simply make the entire system of systems of systems of subsystems that is a modern military work, or cause complex enemy systems that use radio waves to not work — for example, by jamming the Shahid’s guidance system, or the control signals.

Polemology Positions
Security Partners Quietly Up-Arm Ukraine For Spectrum Dominance
Desperately short of drones, Vladimir Putin turned to Iran for help. Teheran has supplied hundreds of unmanned aerial platforms, but only to limited effect. According to Oleksii Reznikov, Minister of Defense, the Ukrainian Air Force has neutralized “suicide drones” like Shahid-136 (see above) using…
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6 months ago · 1 like · Matt Osborne

Systems like TLS-BCT exist to solve the energy density problem of jamming somebody’s radio set at a distance. That is much harder to do with a manpack system, but its potential force-multiplier effect is magnified by networking with heavier, more capable systems.

Polemology Positions
A Very Old Crow Reacts To The Brand-New US Army 'Terrestrial Layer System'
It has wheels, at least. Too many wheels, if you ask me. But at least it has wheels. Not that anyone has asked me, because I am just a “Raven” or “Old Crow” from the 1990s-era of US Army tactical signals intelligence and electronic warfare (SIGINT and EW), not a defense consultant…
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5 months ago · 1 like · Matt Osborne

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A new, electromagnetic aircraft carrier is taking shape. This is probably not its final form, however. This is just a testbed for the changes that are coming to naval warfare as the full potential of the electromagnetic military revolution gets realized at last.

Polemology Positions
The Electromagnetic Warship Takes Shape
Electromagnetic weapons are not an easy sell for toymakers. What you see in the image is not a commercial model kit that someone built. Is is a real shipbuilder’s working model of an electronic warfare barge at a trade show. Yawn, right? Using a tug, or under its own power, this barge can mimic the electromagnetic (EM) appearance of an aircraft car…
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4 months ago · 5 likes · Matt Osborne

Deconfliction of the spectrum is a key challenge for modern military staff. Cognitive AI and other emerging technologies will help the people managing electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO) in the future, but the need for people trained to the task will not change.

Polemology Positions
Lessons From The Spectrum War In Ukraine
Although Russia deployed lots of electronic warfare equipment designed to make western precision guided munitions less accurate, “direct jamming against precision systems was rarely effective” once Ukraine began to use them. That’s one of the conclusions in a new report…
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4 months ago · 1 like · Matt Osborne

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The Art Of Spectrum Warfare: Essays On Our Current Military Revolution, Vol. I

www.polemology.net
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