Electronic Warfare and Spectrum Dominance: The Invisible Battlefield
The RF spectrum is becoming a contested domain that impacts both military and commercial operations, driving the need for more resilient architectures and improved capabilities.
By: Dave Dimlich
President of SD3IT
Electronic warfare (EW) has been a part of military conflicts since the advent of radio signals, but in today’s environment of ubiquitous, advanced cellular and satellite communications the electromagnetic spectrum has become a full-fledged warfighting domain on par with land, sea, air, space and cyber. And its impact is growing quickly.
EW and spectrum dominance have been part of the military lexicon for years, but the Russia-Ukraine war has accelerated their roles with the war serving as a proving ground for amped up approaches to EW. For example, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2023, smartphones—those ubiquitous appendages no one leaves at home these days—came into play as target identifiers. Ukrainian troops started tracking cell phone signals to identify the location of Russian soldiers, and Russia soon adopted the same tactic.
On a larger scale, disruption of GPS signals and drone communications have become a critical factor, with both sides focusing on jamming and spoofing signals, as well as developing ways to counteract disruptions. In response to Russia’s heavy investment in jamming equipment, for example, Ukraine has responded by developing drones that use artificial intelligence to navigate without GPS, instead using computer vision. The back-and-forth jamming and evasion that takes place even during a drone attack has created what the Atlantic Council calls a compute war based on data and communications. The key to success in this kind of conflict is spectrum dominance—the ability to ensure your communications while disrupting the enemy’s. Those systems represent the backbone of modern precision warfare.
It’s not limited to the Russia-Ukraine war. The advancements made by China and other countries not only underscore the importance of EW, but they have U.S. leaders concerned that the country has fallen behind. In fact, Russia’s success at jamming satellite-guided munitions and disrupting drone operations have come against systems supplied by the United States and its allies.
U.S. forces need to improve their capabilities while emphasizing the importance of resilience planning—not only for military purposes but for protecting domestic critical infrastructure, utilities and transportation.
Commercial Flights See Collateral Effects
Wireless communications aren’t bound by borders or military-civilian distinctions, so it’s not surprising that EW battles spilled over into civilian environments. GPS jamming and spoofing are affecting commercial aviation at scale, particularly near conflict zones like Ukraine, the Baltic region and the Strait of Hormuz.
Pilots are now encountering false terrain warnings, sudden map shifts and navigation discrepancies caused by manipulated signals. In some cases, aircraft systems report positions miles away from their actual location. And these are not isolated anomalies; they happen hundreds of times a day.
That introduces a dangerous dynamic. When false warnings become routine, operators begin to question the systems they rely on. Over time, that erodes trust in critical safety infrastructure. Whether it involves military forces at war, commercial transportation in flight or protections of infrastructure, technical disruptions become operational risks.
The Challenges of Clear Communications
The vulnerability with GPS and other satellite communications is built into physics. Global Navigation Satellite Systems, including GPS, depend on signals transmitted from satellites more than 20,000 kilometers above Earth. By the time those signals reach the ground, they are extremely weak. It does not take much power to overwhelm them.
Adversaries exploit this in two primary ways:
Jamming, which blocks signals entirely.
Spoofing, which replaces real signals with false ones.
Spoofing is particularly dangerous because systems continue to function, just incorrectly. That makes detection harder and consequences less predictable.
Meanwhile, the spectrum itself is becoming more crowded. Military systems, commercial telecommunications and emerging technologies like 5G are competing for limited bandwidth. The Department of Defense is in the process of turning over spectrum to commercial interests, which enables the United States to better compete with China in the development of 5G wireless—which is itself considered a national security issue because of its economic impact. In terms of wireless communications, the DOD literally has to do more with less.
Although it’s natural to think of electronic warfare primarily as a defense problem, the line between military and civilian impact has effectively disappeared. Civil aviation is already dealing with it. Maritime navigation is affected. Critical infrastructure that depends on timing signals, including power grids and financial systems, is exposed. Even private sector organizations that rely on logistics, fleet tracking or wireless communications are part of this ecosystem. If the spectrum is contested, their operations are at risk.
That’s not sustainable without a fundamental shift in how we design and manage radio frequency (RF) dependent systems, and it’s why resilience is no longer optional.
The Path to RF Resilience
Resilience in the electromagnetic spectrum is not about preventing disruption, which would be unrealistic. It is about operating through it. The DOD has started to formalize this approach, focusing on several key principles that translate directly to enterprise environments.
Network diversity and redundancy. Systems cannot have single points of failure. They need multiple communication pathways, so if one channel is compromised, others remain viable.
Integrated cyber and EW defense. EW doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it intersects with cyber, data integrity and command-and-control systems, and requires integrated teams and architectures that can respond to disruptions across multiple domains.
Spectrum awareness. Systems must detect interference in real time and react accordingly, such as by shifting frequencies, modifying signal characteristics and rerouting communications.
An ecosystem-wide approach. Resilience not only involves individual systems but should also include supply chains, infrastructure and partner ecosystems. Any weak link in the chain that can compromise the entire operation is a risk.
Fortunately, innovative technologies are coming to the fore. A good example is digital beamforming. Unlike traditional analog approaches, digital beamforming allows systems to dynamically steer and shape signals in real time. That improves signal strength, reduces interference and enables more precise targeting of communications. It’s a significant improvement, according to the Joint Tactical Networking Center, changing how systems behave under contested conditions.
Meanwhile, military and other organizations are pursuing capabilities that reduce reliance on GPS, including inertial systems, terrestrial signals and emerging sensor-based platforms that offer alternatives to traditional positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) systems. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is researching the use of quantum sensing to improve PNT, and the Space Force’s SpaceWERX organization is running a PNT Challenge as part of a program to spur innovation.
At the same time, government and industry, in response to the DOD having to give up spectrum, are developing dynamic spectrum sharing models to allow multiple users, including military and commercial entities, to access the same frequency bands without degrading performance. This is particularly important in heavily utilized bands like the ones between 3.1 and 3.45 GHz, which is heavily used for military radars.
The Federal Communications Commission also is exploring space to make additional radio frequency spectrum available to support a new wave of emerging space activities. The FCC has launched several initiatives, including a proposed rule officially listed in the Federal Register as Spectrum Abundance for Weird Space Stuff.
All of these efforts point toward a more adaptive, distributed and intelligent spectrum environment. The challenge is in integrating new technologies effectively.
Where Organizations Need to Focus
Whether defense or civilian, organizations should start with a clear assessment of their dependencies. Where are they relying on GPS? How critical are those systems? What happens if the signal is degraded or manipulated?
From there, they need to build layered resilience:
Implement alternative navigation and timing sources.
Design networks with redundancy and diversity built in.
Incorporate real-time monitoring for signal integrity.
Train operators to recognize and respond to degraded conditions.
Just as important, they need to test these systems under realistic scenarios. That means simulating interference, rather than just planning for it. In a contested spectrum environment, assuming your systems will work as designed is a risky assumption.
The electromagnetic spectrum is no longer a passive resource. It is an active battlespace, with events occurring at scale and with increasing sophistication. Organizations that treat spectrum resilience as a strategic priority will be able to operate through disruption.
At SD3IT, we focus on integrating resilient, mission-ready technologies that perform in contested environments. That includes designing architectures that assume disruption, rather than pretending to avoid it, and aligning commercial innovation with operational requirements.
In this environment, dominance is not about control but about continuity. And continuity starts with resilience.
About SD3IT
Solution Driven, Designed and Delivered Technology (SD3IT) provides advanced IT solutions that help organizations modernize infrastructure, enhance security and improve operational performance. By aligning emerging technologies with mission needs, SD3IT delivers practical, scalable outcomes across government and commercial environments.
