Electronic warfare

Military operations are executed in an information environment increasingly complicated by the electromagnetic spectrum. The electromagnetic spectrum portion of the information environment is referred to as the electromagnetic environment (EME). The recognized need for military forces to have unimpeded access to and use of the electromagnetic environment creates vulnerabilities and opportunities for electronic warfare in support of military operations.

Within the information operations construct, EW is an element of information warfare; more specifically, it is an element of offensive and defensive counterinformation.

NATO has a different and arguably more encompassing and comprehensive approach to EW. A military committee conceptual document from 2007, MCM_0142 Nov 2007 Military Committee Transformation Concept for Future NATO Electronic Warfare, recognised the EME as an operational maneuver space and warfighting environment/domain. In NATO, EW is considered to be warfare in the EME. NATO has adopted simplified language which parallels those used in other warfighting environments like maritime, land, and air/space. For example, an electronic attack (EA) is offensive use of EM energy, electronic defense (ED), and electronic surveillance (ES). The use of the traditional NATO EW terms, electronic countermeasures (ECM), electronic protective measures (EPM), and electronic support measures (ESM) has been retained as they contribute to and support electronic attack (EA), electronic defense (ED) and electronic surveillance (ES). Besides EW, other EM operations include intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR), and signals intelligence (SIGINT). Subsequently, NATO has issued EW policy and doctrine and is addressing the other NATO defense lines of development.

Primary EW activities have been developed over time to exploit the opportunities and vulnerabilities that are inherent in the physics of EM energy. Activities used in EW include electro-optical, infrared and radio frequency countermeasures; EM compatibility and deception; radio jamming, radar jamming and deception and electronic counter-countermeasures (or anti-jamming); electronic masking, probing, reconnaissance, and intelligence; electronic security; EW reprogramming; emission control; spectrum management; and wartime reserve modes. …

Electronic warfare consists of three major subdivisions: electronic attack (EA), electronic protection (EP), and electronic warfare support (ES).

Electronic attack (EA), also known as electronic countermeasures (ECM), involves the offensive use of electromagnetic energy weapons, directed energy weapons, or anti-radiation weapons to attack personnel, facilities, or equipment with the intent of degrading, neutralizing, or destroying enemy combat capability including human life. In the case of electromagnetic energy, this action is most commonly referred to as "jamming" and can be performed on communications systems or radar systems. In the case of anti-radiation weapons, this often includes missiles or bombs that can home in on a specific signal (radio or radar) and follow that path directly to impact, thus destroying the system broadcasting.

In November 2021, Israel Aerospace Industries announced a new electronic warfare system named Scorpius that can disrupt radar and communications from ships, UAVs, and missiles simultaneously and at varying distances.

On 8 September 2024, Russian drones entered both Romanian and Latvian airspace. Romania scrambled two F-16s to monitor one of the drones, which landed "in an uninhabited area" near Periprava, according to the Romanian Ministry of Defence. The drone that entered Latvian airspace from Belarus crashed near Rezekne. This comes as the ISW noted increased success in Ukrainian Electronic Warfare against Russian drones that resulted in "several Russian Shahed drones (that) recently failed to reach their intended targets for unknown reasons." Two Kh-58s also reportedly failed to reach their targets.

Electronic protection (EP), also known as an electronic protective measure (EPM) or electronic counter-countermeasure (ECCM) are a measure used to protect against an electronic enemy attack (EA) or to protect against friendly forces who unintentionally deploy the equivalent of an electronic attack on friendly forces. (sometimes called EW fratricide). The effectiveness of electronic protection (EP) level is the ability to counter an electronic attack (EA).

Flares are often used to distract infrared homing missiles into missing their target. The use of flare rejection logic in the guidance (seeker head) of an infrared homing missile to counter an adversary's use of flares is an example of EP. …

The earliest documented use of EW was during the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. The British Army, when trying to relieve Ladysmith, under siege by the Boers, used a searchlight to "bounce" Morse code signals off the clouds. The Boers immediately spotted this and used one of their own searchlights in an attempt to jam the British signals. This was graphically described by Winston Churchill in his book London to Ladysmith via Pretoria.

The very first military attempts at radio jamming were reportedly made during exercises by the Royal Navy in 1902, and by the US Navy in 1903. Nonetheless, the first documented radio jamming was reportedly a civil one. During the 1901 America's Cup, journalists from the American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Co (AWT&T) used a code to report the leading ship while occupying the frequency, thus preventing other present journalists from reporting the cup's winner, thereby gaining a considerable lead over other journalists in their reporting.

The first recorded wireless interception was performed by HMS Diana in the Suez Canal in 1904, which was capable of recording Russian telecommunications.

The first recorded attempt at wartime jamming happened during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. On 8 March 1904, as the Japanese Navy was attempting a long-distance bombardment of Port Arthur using cruisers with a "spotter" destroyer that radioed them ballistic corrections. A Russian radio operator, hearing the presence of communications, used his Spark-gap transmitter to attempt to drown out the communications, allegedly leading the Japanese to promptly retreat without having achieved their objectives.

During May 1905, Russian Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky was attempting to cross the Tsushima Strait to rejoin Vladivostok after having repaired some of his ships in Madagascar. The Russian Navy was spotted by the Japanese armed Merchantman Shinano Maru. The captain of the Russian warship Ural requested permission to disrupt the Japanese communications link by attempting to transmit a stronger radio signal, hoping to distort the Japanese signal at the receiving end. Rozhestvensky refused the advice and denied the Ural permission to radio jam the enemy, as it could have signaled the position of the Russian Fleet. He also refused to send scouting ships for the same reason. …

In 2026, US President Donald Trump described a secret weapon in the US arsenal that he called "the discombobulator", which he said was used in the 2026 United States intervention in Venezuela to jam electronic equipment used by the Venezuelan military. Analysts noted that what Trump described most likely does not exist as a single weapon, but rather as a system of weapons.

Trump later acknowledged that he made up the name "the discombobulator", because in his words, "everything was discombobulated".