The Invisible War: A Look into the Near Future
In general, it is good for any country when it has an external enemy. Then the government of this country calmly allocates funds for defense, the military spends these funds, and everything is more or less beautiful. And if the enemy occasionally arranges something like that at the borders of the country - it is just wonderful. Like, for example, Pakistan and India. Yes, they fought in the past, yes, there was something in the present. Now it is peaceful, but the budgets are being spent...
New planes are being bought, new ones are being ordered Tanks, SAU, and in general, the movement is in full swing. And, it should be noted, in terms of what is produced by the military-industrial complex of any of these countries, the economy is completely benefited.
It's worse when there is no enemy. Then you have to at least invent one, otherwise things will be really bad.
Let's take the USA. For a long time, the enemy was the Soviet Union. But in the end, the country was destroyed, so what? And NATO was about to be dissolved, because you need to be friends in a bloc against someone, but what to do if there is no such thing?
Well, Saddam Hussein came to the rescue temporarily. You could say, saved him. And Bin Laden. His idea of international terrorism kept everyone on edge for a long time, forcing NATO members to spend generously on fighting terrorism.
And that's it. The enemies are gone. The specter of doing nothing, that is, practically, military bankruptcy, looms again.
But the idea of putting China, the Main Enemy (almost Sauron), on the throne was definitely an extraordinary thought. China is not Iraq or Libya. It can hit back so hard that it will not seem like a little. And this is precisely what makes China valuable to the US. Its political appetite for Taiwan. It is clear that no one in the US will rush to defend Taiwan when the hour "H" comes on the "D" day. But one can go on and on about how immediately after conquering Taiwan, the Chinese hordes will move towards California. Or Alaska. It does not matter where, what matters is why.
And now the American media is coming out with headlines like “China is waging an electronic war that can instantly destroy enemy equipment.” weapon. The United States must keep up with the times."
Yes, there is something to it. A well-calculated electromagnetic pulse in a large city or near a military base can disable aircraft, disrupt communications and critical infrastructure. The only question is the power of this pulse. The most effective is from detonating a nuclear charge in the air at an altitude of 1-1,5 km. The rest is a matter of discussion.
Modern warfare is undergoing profound changes. While traditional warfare continues to be fought using missiles, tanks and drones, a quieter, more treacherous battlefield emerges where enemy forces can be taken out without a single explosion.
Here we are, of course, talking about EW, the complexes of which have begun to develop rapidly in the last two years. The emergence of a new enemy in the form of UAVs of various classes has also caused the emergence of countermeasures. And in the very recent past it even seemed that short-range electronic warfare had won a victory over drones.
But alas, new weapons were put into action, that is, weapons that had already been written off and sent to retirement. That is, the first generation of wire-guided ATGMs became the image and likeness. In our case, they were replaced by FPV drones with fiber-optic control. The essence is the same, a more modern design. But the electronic warfare systems turned out to be almost powerless against such a formation. But the word "almost" contains what we will talk about now.
The primary weapons in this form of warfare include electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) and high-power microwaves (HPMs), which can disable or even permanently damage electronic equipment. But at the forefront of this shift are combined electronic warfare systems (CEWs). They use artificial intelligence to jam signals, disrupt radars, and can even knock drones out of the sky. Military experts around the world are recognizing the defensive potential of CEWs and are preparing to use them.
According to a report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. (down the block from the White House, by the way), that specializes in defense policy and budgets, the U.S. essentially has a game of catch-up to compete effectively with global advances in electronic warfare capabilities, and it could take “a decade or more” to catch up with potential rivals like China.
In November 2024, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission released a report to Congress that found the People's Liberation Army had developed "powerful" electronic warfare capabilities capable of "detecting, defeating, and disabling" some U.S. military weapons.
And speaking generally of those who use such means, it is far from only official armies that employ various methods of electronic warfare. Insurgents, rebels, and terrorists are also exploring ways to integrate these tools into their arsenals. And some groups are achieving some success.
Some readers may be critical of the following sentences, but today the ability to manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum is as important to modern combat as air superiority was in the mid- to late 20th century.
Over the past 10 years, the entire world has been waiting for some kind of unification of man and computer. Yes, scenarios of network-centric interactions, when human abilities were significantly enhanced by control computer systems and artificial intelligence. In the US, for example, the Maven project was being developed, which by 2017 was supposed to provide exactly this kind of interaction scheme between human and machine intelligence on the battlefield. It was assumed that by the end of 2017, machine learning algorithms would be used in combat, but so far the results on the ground are insignificant.
That could change, however, as the Pentagon places greater emphasis on electronic warfare technologies. One promising example of a recent effort is Leonidas, an advanced high-power microwave system designed to be mounted on military vehicles to combat drone swarms.
First deployed for military testing in the Middle East, Leonidas, developed by US tech company Epirus, represents a significant step forward: a weapon that fires a powerful microwave pulse at incoming drones to disable their electronics. Its large, flat antenna emits a wide beam that can neutralise entire swarms of aerial drones at once.
Another advantage of this system is that, unlike traditional physical weapons, microwave weapons (HPM) can be used repeatedly, with the fastest possible “recharge”.
Does this remind you of anything? That's right, the Russian "Krasukha". Only our system has a rather narrow beam, which is caused by a slightly different concept of application: when "Krasukha" was being developed, no one was thinking about drone swarms, they were there, in science fiction. But cruise missiles were, and the electronics of such a missile, caught in a beam of hard radiation, would say goodbye to its processors and other guts not just quickly, but instantly.
The Americans have a different approach, caused by the emergence of other goals. It is a pity that there is no way to compare the output power of the complexes, then everything would become very transparent and understandable.
Meanwhile, the Air Force has awarded a $6,4 million contract to the Advanced Electronic Warfare Group at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio to study CEW algorithms that can identify new threats. The group wants to give the Air Force a system that analyzes its environment “with the reliability of a human, but with greater accuracy and faster response times,” says project manager David Brown. The institute even announced the work last April.
However, it should be understood that years may pass from the start of work on the creation of any type of weapon to its creation "in metal". According to many experts in the field of electronic intelligence and electronic warfare, the United States and its foreign partners have a lot of work to do to fully implement practical weapons based on AI in the air, on land and at sea.
Catching up and overtaking is a very difficult task. It requires many years of time and many billions in financial terms. The US is forced to play the role of catch-up.
Where will the development efforts be directed? The idea of using AI and machine learning algorithms to automate the detection of anomalous signals that indicate an electronic attack, such as an electromagnetic pulse or high-energy pulse, is currently trending. This type of rapid data processing technology will be a “game changer” because it will eliminate the time-consuming process of manual data analysis and will help SIGINT/EW specialists quickly develop more effective countermeasures.
In fact, if the analysis of a "burst" of any radiation takes not seconds, but tenths of a second (and this is the direction in which work is being carried out), then this will help to react more quickly to the changed situation. For example, to give a command to the UAV to leave the impact sector in autonomous mode, with jammed receivers, which will allow preserving the valuable device, if we are talking, say, about "eyes" in the sky.
The second direction is compactness and the possibility of camouflage. The experience of using electronic warfare in combat conditions of the high-tech conflict in Ukraine has shown that the priorities in camouflage have shifted somewhat. Firstly, the size has become very important. The smaller the electronic warfare system, even at the expense of power, the more chances it has to work longer in favor of its army.
Before that very 2022, which turned everything upside down, who was the main opponent of EW? That's right, the aircraft. Since any EW system, willy-nilly, must approach the line of contact, since the "range" of EW systems is still inferior to cruise and other missiles.
The aircraft and its missiles with infrared homing heads were at first quite a good means of counteraction, as they worked well against power generators for electronic warfare systems. This problem was solved on the ground by shielding the stations and diverting the exhaust to the side.
Aviation responded with anti-radar missiles. A very effective weapon, against which there are methods of combat, but they are not so effective. However, at the moment aviation also has many problems in the form of long-range SAMs, which are very good at keeping aircraft at a safe distance.
If we express everything in numbers, then everything is simple: here is a good anti-ballistic missile, the Kh-31.
Its range of flight and confident destruction, depending on the modification, is from 70 to 110 km. The speed is 1000 m/s, that is, from the moment of launch to the moment of destruction, 80 to 120 seconds will pass. The missile needs time to accelerate. That is, by military standards - an eternity.
If modern technology can track a missile launch and understand where it is flying, assuming what its final destination is, then in two minutes it is really possible to take measures to minimize damage. For example, simply turn off the station, thereby significantly complicating the missile's targeting.
But our time has given birth to a new type of weapon, no less, and perhaps even more effective. We are talking about unmanned aerial vehicles, which are much cheaper, but the use of which is no less effective. If we talk about numbers, then the X-31 costs on average half a million dollars. For this amount you can buy and equip 30-40 drones. I think there is no need to say what such a flock can do when used correctly. Everyone knows very well how this type of weapon is used in Ukraine.
And, by the way, despite its small dimensions and portable weight, the UAV is very effective: the emitter antenna mirror, into which 5 kg of explosives fly, is guaranteed to fail. And without antennas, the electronic warfare system is no longer good for anything. The same applies to counter-battery warfare stations.
But UAVs still have one weak spot: visual detection, unless we are talking about devices like Geranium, which operate on fixed coordinate targets. This means that camouflage has become a very important factor again.
But the advantage of such advanced military technologies is that they can now be disguised as anything. We once talked about "Kalibr" missiles in ordinary containers on a barge in the middle of Lake Peipus, the British placed a missile system Defense Gravehawk inside a standard shipping container, which can be discreetly placed on civilian cargo ships, trucks and rail cars.
Exactly the same logic applies to an electromagnetic pulse or high-frequency electromagnetic pulse system, such as the American Leonidas project, a complex that is supposed to “catch up and overtake”, since its main task is to counter drone swarms.
This development is compact enough to be hidden in a delivery truck or cargo container. A very interesting countermeasure, one might say, a competitor to our "Lever" system, which can be placed not only in a helicopter.
Why drone swarms? Everything is clear here: what China demonstrates in the field of controlling arrays of unmanned vehicles is amazing and delightful. But if the resources of the control system that draws dragons and other wonders in the sky are directed to organizing a mass attack at different altitudes in several echelons, there is an opinion that not every air defense will cope.
Last April, Iran attacked Israel with a total of 300 different delivery systems, from ballistic missiles to UAVs. Israel was assisted in repelling the raid by aircraft and naval air defenses from Great Britain, the United States, France, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Overall, the attack was repelled successfully, but several military facilities were still hit.
The whole world was fighting back. And Israel could have succeeded alone, the question is at what cost.
Okay, but what if there are not 300 drones, but 3000? Yes, of course, ballistic missile warheads are a very serious matter, they can cause mental damage. But a ballistic missile, say, destroys a power supply substation in a district. This is unpleasant, but the damage is redistributed through other substations. And what can a hundred drones do that damage fifty transformer substations in the same district? Question…
"Epirus Leonidas" can destroy a swarm of drones with an electromagnetic pulse that disables the drones' electronics. In fact, this is the next step in the fight against UAVs, the only question is its implementation in time.
And there is one more nuance. In the leakage of data first, and then of technology.
In the United States, there is such an agency as the Department of Homeland Security, an agency responsible for the implementation of immigration, customs, border policy, national internal cybersecurity, some aspects of US national security, as well as the coordination of the fight against terrorism, emergencies and natural disasters on the territory of the United States.
Well, a 2022 report from the US Department of Homeland Security discussed the risks posed by terrorists using “commercially available technologies.” It highlighted the real possibility of insurgent groups gaining access to drones, and noted that technologies like electromagnetic pulses could pose a growing threat in the hands of such groups.
Historically, insurgent and terrorist organizations have had to use less sophisticated weapons, relying on improvised explosive devices known as IEDs, small arms, and guerrilla tactics. But the barrier to entry for electronic warfare is shrinking. Unlike tanks or fighter jets, which require extensive logistics and training, an EMP weapon hidden in a truck can be operated with minimal training.
Well, Ukraine has shown the whole world how it is possible to produce thousands of drones in a “garage assembly” environment.
A drone that delivers to a point with specific coordinates not 5 kg of explosives, but a jamming unit that will be activated at the right time or will issue a single energy pulse that will disable all electronic devices of a certain nature within the radius of action. An electronic bomb can in some cases be significantly more effective than a regular bomb.
Because such electronic attacks leave no trace of explosives, no gunfire, and no traditional signs of an attack, they complicate response efforts. It would be difficult for the authorities to determine whether they are dealing with a military attack, a cyberattack, or a simple technical glitch.
As AI continues to improve autonomous decision-making in electronic warfare, these systems will become increasingly effective and difficult to counter. In a future where groups can deploy AI-driven jammers, electromagnetic weapons, and electronic sabotage from anywhere in the world, as is currently the case with hacking into, for example, banking institutions, defense strategies must evolve to detect and neutralize these invisible threats before they occur.
Militaries around the world are already investing in electronic warfare countermeasures, including radiation-hardened electronics that can withstand high levels of radiation, AI-powered defense algorithms, and quantum encryption to improve security against EMP attacks. But story shows that defensive measures often lag behind offensive innovation.
The future of war may be quiet—at least in part. Instead of explosions, the battlefields of tomorrow may see instantaneous power outages, grounded aircraft, and defenses disabled, all thanks to electronic attacks driven by artificial intelligence. Since concealing weapons is already a proven military strategy, it’s only a matter of time before electromagnetic pulses and CEW systems follow the same trajectory—hidden in shipping containers, cars, city streets, delivered by drones, or whatever else the minds of those who need them devise.
What happens when war stops being like the wars we know? The world is about to find out, and the renewal is in full swing. Many weapons systems have risen to the top, and those that represented power just ten years ago are now simply unnecessary due to their ineffectiveness.
And here the question is: who will lead this process?
Information