[Business Insider] After years of neglecting electronic warfare, the US Army is rushing to revitalize its jamming capabilities.
The catalyst is the Ukraine war, where cheap but plentiful drones are playing a vital — almost decisive — role, doing everything from spotting for artillery to destroying armored vehicles.
At the same time, jamming has emerged as perhaps the most effective counter-drone weapon: Ukraine may be losing 10,000 drones a month — many to Russian electronic-warfare systems — while it strives to boost its jamming capabilities. Rather than using scarce and expensive antiaircraft missiles and guns to shoot down a drone that may cost only a few hundred dollars, it's easier to disrupt the link between the drone and its operator, causing it to crash.
This has put fresh impetus behind the US Army's electronic-warfare upgrades. Douglas Bush, the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology, told reporters during an August 7 roundtable discussion that the Army was "fundamentally reinvesting in rebuilding our tactical electronic-warfare capability after that largely left the force over the last 20 years."
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