MISSION STATEMENT
The Spring
1999 air offensive over former Yugoslavia was a success, but it also revealed
important gaps in U.S. military capabilities. The most important gap was a
shortage of electronic-warfare (EW) aircraft. Because this problem is likely to
grow worse and could undermine our ability to win future wars, I have organized
a bipartisan Electronic Warfare Working Group.
The working
group will be a task force aimed at establishing a nucleus of key Members who
understand the electronic-warfare challenge and can serve as a resource for the
House and the U.S. military in assuring that EW needs are adequately understood
and funded. Electronic warfare has
become so critical to U.S. military capabilities that the creation of a
congressional task force to follow the issue is long overdue.
The
definition of electronic warfare has become more fluid with the advent of
information operations, but for the purposes of the task force, I would like to
define it as airborne equipment aimed at assuring U.S. dominance of the
electromagnetic spectrum in wartime.
In other words, it includes jamming or deceiving enemy radars and other
sensors while leveraging America's lead in digital technologies to exploit the
full war fighting potential of various electronic missions.
The main
standard-bearer for such missions today is the Navy's EA-6B Prowler, a
carrier-based aircraft that has been continuously upgraded to support all the
services in wartime (the Air Force retired its dedicated jammers earlier in the
decade). The Prowler is the best tactical support jammer in the world, but there
is general agreement that it needs to be replaced sometime in the next 20 years.
An analysis of alternatives is underway.
The most
pressing issue for the working group will be to determine what near-term steps
are needed to maintain America's EW edge until the Prowler's replacement becomes
available around 2015. Any
shortfall in equipment or skills could lead to catastrophic military failures,
because even stealthy aircraft require EW support to operate effectively in some
environments. Unfortunately, EW
often seems so nebulous that the mission area has been neglected by both the
Congress and the military services.
A focused,
bipartisan task force can fix that.
As a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, I served three tours of duty in
Vietnam as a navigator and EW officer in a B-52. My background in EW has given me an
understanding of the EW needs of our military. I have been encouraged by the services
to create the working group, and I strongly believe that the Electronic Warfare
Working Group will be an important resource for Congress and our armed
services.