Short of face-to-face conversation, wired internet, or telephone landlines—a mystery to many young Americans—nearly every form of communication the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) uses today, especially on the battlefield, is wireless. Some U.S. adversaries are working very hard to cut off that form of communication.
Last week, the DoD released the “2020 Department of Defense Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy.” This document not only lays out how the military will guarantee its continued and unfettered access to the airwaves, or spectrum, which facilitates GPS, radio, satellite, and cell phone communications, but also shows how the military plans to master that spectrum while on the battlefield.
“The rise of mobile systems and digital technology across the globe has placed enormous strain on the available spectrum for DoD’s command, control, and communication needs,” said Dana Deasy, the department’s chief information officer. “This strategy will help set the conditions needed to ensure our Warfighters have freedom of action within the electromagnetic spectrum to successfully conduct operations and training in congested, contested, and constrained multidomain environments across the globe.”