Russia is no longer undertaking electromagnetic strikes in the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, following a supposedly failed effort to cut off SpaceX’s Starlink internet connection to Ukraine using electromagnetic warfare. The Pentagon has now stated that the US can learn a lot from private enterprises in order to defend state intelligence from similar attacks. Dave Tremper, electronic warfare director for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said the US has to grow much better at managing this form of warfare in a speech at the C4ISRNET Conference on Wednesday. He applauded the remarkable quickness with which SpaceX was able to shut off the attack.
Musk said around the start of the invasion that Starlink has shipped thousands of terminals to Ukraine and repositioned satellites to supply the nation with much-needed Internet service after Russia launched a huge cyber-attack on communications satellites. “Starlink, at least so far, has defied all hacking & jamming attempts,” Musk tweeted shortly after. That isn’t due to a lack of effort on Russia’s behalf; according to Dave Tremper, Russia attempted to jam the Starlink satellites with an electromagnetic assault. Engineers at Starlink were able to rejoin the systems with just a “one line of code,” responding to the attack at breakneck speed and nullifying Russia’s best attempt to disrupt the link.
“That’s wonderful from the standpoint of an EW technologist. According to Breaking Defense, Dave Tremper commented, “It paradigm and how they achieved that is sort of eye-watering to me.” “We need to be able to upgrade in the same manner that Starlink was able to when a danger appeared. We need to be able to modify our electromagnetic posture quickly, and we need to be able to change what we’re attempting to achieve without sacrificing capabilities.”
He goes on to say that the Pentagon conducts things a little differently and a lot slower, requiring them to first identify the problem and then contract a solution, a procedure that takes far longer than an in-house remedy. The Pentagon must be ready to respond to threats as they arise, not after they have occurred, as the terrain of warfare shifts from who has the larger bomb to who can knock the enemy’s systems out. According to Tremper, the US must now spend in developing new technologies in response to growing dangers, rather than simply rehashing existing ones.
