In the coming EW war between the U.S. and Russia, the Americans will lose and lose badly. by Wayne Madsen

In the coming EW war between the U.S. and Russia, the Americans will lose and lose badly.

by Wayne Madsen

The latest neocon war proposal oozing forth from the right-wing think tanks in Washington is that there are serious discussions within the Pentagon, talks that include Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, to stymie Russia's Middle East military operations by waging an electronic warfare (EW) campaign against Russian air, naval, and ground forces in Syria. If Moscow approves Iraq's request for intervention in that country, the neocons want the U.S. EW campaign, which would include cyber-attacks, extended to Iraq, as well.

The neocons may want to engage Russia on the electronic battlefield but, according to National Security Agency insiders, the U.S. ability to wage an effective EW campaign is severely handicapped by former NSA director General Michael Hayden's decision to distribute NSA functions to various regional NSA facilities around the United States. This move was originally undertaken by Hayden's TRAILBLAZER project, a program that was eventually canceled after $1.2 was wasted on it.

NSA's main electronic warfare emitter signature databases, one code named KILTING and the other known as the Emitter Parameter List (EPL), were, as part of the NSA distribution of functions, split up between NSA Washington in Fort Meade, Maryland, and NSA Colorado in Aurora and NSA Texas in San Antonio. This distribution of NSA's operations has, according to the insiders, resulted in incorrect and outdated emitter data from databases maintained on Russian radar systems, avionics, telemetry, and other signal sources. Much of the KILTING data involves emitter data from Soviet military systems no longer used by the Russian military.

The Russians, on the other hand, have deployed to Syria advanced EW systems capable of jamming U.S. radar and electronic warfare, electronic surveillance, and electronic countermeasure systems. These systems are deployed on platforms like the IL-20 surveillance aircraft; the mobile Krashuka-4 land-based electronic warfare system that, among other things, can disrupt low-Earth orbit satellites and jam signals in a 250-square mile area; drones outfitted with EW pods, and Navy ships capable of waging technologically-advanced EW and signals intelligence collection. These systems would be devastating against NATO air units, including "stealth" aircraft, that are ordered to come to the assistance of the Saudi- and Qatari-funded jihadist rebels by enforcing a NATO "no-fly zone" over Syria.

The fact that the Russians, who spend only one-tenth of what the United States spends on defense, are able to outmaneuver the United States on the electronic battlefield, is a testament to the graft and corruption in the U.S. military-industrial complex, with companies like Lockheed Martin and SAIC enriching themselves with little or nothing in the Pentagon's quiver of electronic weapons to show for it.


NATO forces will be no match against Russian EW systems like the Krasukha-4 [above]. NATO EW systems rely on outdated emitter data from the NSA that is over 30 years old.

In 2005, WMR detailed the weaknesses of U.S. EW capabilities. The situation, according to our sources, has not greatly improved in the last 10 years:

Operators in U.S. electronic warfare aircraft rely on NSA to provide accurate electronic intelligence (ELINT) data in order to program their radar warning receivers and jamming pods. However, NSA data, provided from two databases known as EPL (Emitter Parameter List) and "Kilting." 70 percent of NSA's ELINT data is 30 years old. NSA management has forced field operators to use raw ELINT intercept data, culled from a database called "Wrangler," to program their ELINT systems. NSA operations and software engineers believe this function should be handled by NSA and not the "warfighters."  Updated ELINT data is handled by ELINT Technical Reports or "ELTs." In 2003, the year the Iraq war started, there were 938 ELTs submitted on new emitter data. However, there were only 200 updates made to the ELINT databases.

The failure to update the ELINT databases may have had disastrous consequences in Iraq. For example, EPL and Kilting do not contain data on air traffic control radars and microwave communications links. Because current ELINT systems cannot differentiate between commercial signals and hostile target tracking emitters, U.S. forces in Iraq have launched attacks on non-threat targets in the belief they were hostile. NSA sources report that many of the cases of fratricide in Iraq has been due to faulty or old ELINT data. For example, the failure by NSA to update ELINT data and provide emitter parameter data to warfighting units led to the accidental shoot down by a Patriot missile of a British Royal Air Force Tornado fighter in March 2003 near the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border at the outset of the Iraq campaign. Two British crew members were killed. The ELINT data used by the Patriot misidentified the Tornado as an enemy missile and the U.S. Army blamed the British crew for the mistake, claiming they failed to switch on its Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) equipment. NSA insiders claim that allegation was false. They claim that "blue signals" (friendly) are not adequately included in the emitter data sent to field units by NSA and that claims by the Pentagon that the Tornado was shot down due to pilot error were false.

In other incidents, the radar warning receivers (RWRs) on U.S. F-16s flying over Iraq have either evaded or fired AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range, Air-to-Air) missiles on microwave communications towers because the microwave signals were identified as threat emitters from hostile aircraft. U.S. jammers are also adversely affected by the failure to update ELINT data.With aviation fire control systems so automated by the use of computers, incorrect or outdated emitter data may continue to have disastrous effects on the battlefield, including the recent unprovoked U.S. attack on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz.

The Pentagon recognizes that it is behind the eight ball when it comes to facing off against Russia on an electronic warfare battle. The Defense Department's planned
Multi-Function Electronic Warfare system (MFEW), the closest platform that matches Russia's Krasukha-4, is not expected to become fully operational until 2027.

THE ROVING EYE - The US-Russia Ukrainian deal - By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE The US-Russia Ukrainian deal By Pepe Escobar By the time you read this Russia will have invaded Ukraine. Well, that's what the Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, US Air Force General Philip Breedlove, is spinning. Breedlove Supreme says the Russians are "ready to go" and could easily take over eastern Ukraine. Western corporate media have already dusted off their Kevlar vests. Now compare Breedlove Supreme with a grown-up diplomat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has called on NATO to please de-escalate the "unreasonable" warmongering rhetoric, which also includes officially ending all civilian and military cooperation with Russia and planning more military moves in Eastern Europe. While NATO - shorthand for the Pentagon's European division - freaks out, especially via its outgoing secretary-general, Danish patsy Anders Fogh Rasmussen, let's see where we really stand on the ground, based on leaks from both Lavrov's and US Secretary of State John Kerry's camps. The heart of the matter - obscured by a rainbow bridge of hysteria - is that neither Washington nor Moscow want Ukraine to become a festering wound. Moscow told Washington, officially, it has no intention of "invading" Ukraine. And Washington told Moscow that, for all the demented rhetoric, it does not want to expand NATO to either Ukraine or Georgia. Whatever Washington's actions, they won't convince the Kremlin the putsch in Kiev was not orchestrated in large part by goons allied to Kaghanate of Nulands - aka US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nulands. At the same time, the Kremlin knows time is on its side - so it would be totally counterproductive to even contemplate "invading" eastern Ukraine. Compound the vicious catfight among dodgy factions in Kiev, from fascists to Saint Yulia "Kill all the Russians" Timoschenko; Gazprom raising the price of natural gas by 80%; and the International Monetary Fund about to unleash some nasty structural adjustment that will make Greece look like Cinderella playing in a rose garden, and all that Moscow needs to do is sit back, relax and watch the (internal) carnage. The same applies for the Baltics - which, as NATO hysteria would have it, might be invaded next week. As the Baltics are part of NATO, then we would really have the Brussels Robocops going ballistic. Yet only trademark arrogant/ignorant neo-cons believe Moscow will break complex political/trade relationships with Europe - especially Germany - risking a hot war over the Baltics. The Germans don't want a hot or cold war either. Even in the extremely unlikely event that would happen, what would macho, macho NATO do, under Pentagon's orders? Invade Russian territory? That does not even qualify as a lousy joke. By the way, as bad jokes ago, it's hard to top Olli Rehn, vice president of the Kafkaesque European Commission, stressing that " in the interests to maintain peace and stability on our continent" the European Union is part of the 11 billion euro (US$15 billion) IMF/disaster capitalism package to plunder, sorry, "help" Ukraine, and this while EU citizens are unemployed and/or thrown into poverty by the millions. As for Berlin's top priority, that is to at least try to steer the EU out of an almighty crash, which implies keeping the equally economically devastated Club Med and Central Europe on board while fighting off the rise and rise of nasty, "normalized" neofascism. "Massive undertaking" does not even begin to describe it. Why add a confrontation with Moscow to this indigestible bouillabaisse? New axis in the house Moral high ground epiphanies such as this Guardian editorial ("he gained a peninsula but lost a country") are pointless. Same for minion Poland freaking out and asking for more "protection" from the Brussels mafia. Predictably, Western corporate media is spinning Putin "blinked" when he phoned US President Barack Obama to try to set up a solution package - which includes, crucially, a federalization of Ukraine. The Obama administration - even staffed by astounding mediocrities - knows this is the only rational way ahead. And no amount of "pressure" will bend Moscow. Those go-go days of imposing whatever whim over serial drunkard Boris Yeltsin are long gone. At the same time, Moscow is a realist player - fully aware that the only possible solution for Ukraine has to be worked out with Washington. So Ukraine is essentially a detail - and "Europe" is no more than a helpless bystander. Who are you gonna call in "Europe"? That Magritte-style nonentity European Council President Herman Van Rompuy? Anyone who's been to Brussels knows that "Europe" remains a glorified collection of principalities bickering in a smatter of languages. Machiavelli would easily recognize it as such. To top if off, the Obama administration has no clue what it wants in Ukraine. A "constitutional democracy"? Moscow might even agree with that, while knowing, based on rows and rows of historical/cultural reasons, it's bound to be a failure. The red line though has been spelled out over and over again: no NATO bases in Ukraine. Rational players in Washington - a certified minority - certainly have noticed that if you don't play ball with Moscow, Russia will play very hard ball within the framework of the P5+1 (the UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany) negotiations on the Iranian nuclear dossier. Only the blind won't see that Moscow and Tehran are evolving towards a closer strategic partnership as much as Moscow and Beijing. There's a real strategic geopolitical axis in the house - Moscow-Beijing-Tehran - and the whole developing world has already noticed that's where the real action is. But as far as Ukraine is concerned, the stark fact is this is all about the US and Russia. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.