Military leaders are reluctant to treat the electromagnetic spectrum as a separate domain of warfare as they do with air, land, sea, space and cyber, even as the service increasingly recognize the importance of superiority in this area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the Association of Old Crows conference Oct. 30, representatives from the Army, Navy and Air Force weighed in on a lingering debate: whether the electromagnetic spectrum should be considered its own domain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In short, while the spectrum can legitimately be described as a physically distinct domain, it does not make sense logistically for the Department of Defense to declare it a separate domain of warfare, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that we\u2019ve had a lot of discussion about \u2026 In one way, you can argue that the physical nature of the electromagnetic spectrum, the physical nature of it being a domain. However, I understand the implications and those are different challenges for a large organization like the Department of Defense. So I think that there\u2019s a little bit of a different discussion when you talk about domain and what that implies for the Department of Defense and each of the departments in a different way,\u201d said Brig. Gen. David Gaedecke, director of electromagnetic spectrum superiority for the Air Force\u2019s deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regardless of whether it\u2019s an independent domain, military leaders made clear that leveraging the electromagnetic spectrum is a priority for every department and every platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to operate from strategic down to tactical, and EMS \u2026 is going to enable all of our forces to communicate and maneuver effectively, so we\u2019ll have a layered approach across all the domains that we operate in,\u201d said Laurence Mixon from the Army\u2019s Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors. \u201cEMS is definitely an aspect of the operational environment that every tactician has to be aware of, understand and leverage. And on the acquisition side we have to consider EMS when we are developing every one of our systems. I think since EMS crosses all of the domains that we currently have today that we identify and use in the joint parlance–I don\u2019t think the Army is ready to call it a domain.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similarly, while the Navy is working to understand how EMS works best within the maritime domain, Rear Adm. Steve Parode, director of the Navy\u2019s Warfare Integration Directorate, N2\/N6F, indicated that there was no rush to declare EMS a separate domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor the Navy, we\u2019re pretty comfortable with the way we are into the maritime domain as our principal operational sphere. We are working through understanding the EMS and the way it relates to physical properties in that domain. We know where we\u2019re strong and we know where we\u2019re weak. And we understand principally why we\u2019re weak. We\u2019re making decisions about how to get better,\u201d said Parode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Understanding and utilizing the electromagnetic spectrum is key to every branch of the military, but military experts are skeptical about the need to declare the electromagnetic spectrum a separate domain of warfare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":12,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"10":{"categories":["daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"daily-news-roundup"}}},"categories":[106,12,29,32],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3143],"class_list":["post-10084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-electronic-warfare","category-home","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"RDMC3I54ENCH7N6NHSWUH3BS6Q","arc_canonical_url":"\/electronic-warfare\/2019\/11\/06\/should-the-military-treat-the-electromagnetic-spectrum-as-its-own-domain\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n