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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Georgia Guard activates its first electromagnetic warfare unit
The Georgia Army National Guard activated the 111th Electromagnetic Warfare Company, the first unit of its kind in the U.S. Army, according to a National Guard press release. Lt. Col. Luke Gurley, commander of the 221st Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Battalion — the parent command of the 111th EW — presided over the ceremony on Saturday at the Fort Gillem Enclave, which included the assumption of command by Capt. Caleb Rogers. '[This] unit ... will be at the forefront of our capabilities in the electromagnetic spectrum,' Gurley said. The activation of the 111th EW Company marks a significant step in modernizing the Army's capabilities within a domain that is increasingly critical to national security, according to the release. The new formation will provide capabilities to detect, recognize, locate and identify signals of interest —supporting combatant commanders. 'The legacy of the 221st Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Battalion and the Georgia Guard to lead from the front and provide those critical capabilities ... both locally and abroad is going to be driven by Georgia soldiers,' said Brig. Gen. Theodore Scott III, commander of the 78th Troop Command. 'And that means the world to me.' Scott, a former leader of the 221st IEW, has watched the formation rapidly expand over the years. 'As the battlefield continues to evolve, the 221st IEW is ready,' Scott said. 'It's one of the most deployed units in the state and has been for a number of decades. And so that continues to articulate the relevancy of 221st and now the 111th.' The 221st IEW has deployed soldiers to Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Cuba and the southern U.S. border, and has supported U.S. Central Command and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command activities. The 111th EW Company traces its lineage to the 1st Battalion, 111th Signal Battalion, the only Georgia Army National Guard unit mobilized during the 1961 Berlin Crisis. 'Today is not simply about activating a new unit. It's about recognizing and honoring a proud legacy,' Gurley said. Rogers, the newly appointed commander, acknowledged the unique challenges and opportunities associated with leading this pioneering unit. Rogers told Task & Purpose that the 111th will have three main tasks — 'support, attack and protect' — that separate them from other intelligence units. 'All of our soldiers are expected to keep up with evolving technology, and the unit as a whole is remaining flexible with the expectation of receiving a growing number of mission types,' Rogers said. The 111th EW Company will conduct its first field exercise in August at the Chattahoochee National Forest, focusing on electromagnetic support training and identifying and locating static and moving targets, including helicopters provided by the Georgia Guard's 78th Aviation Troop Command. 'It's a great time to be in military intelligence and electromagnetic warfare,' Scott said. 'I am excited for the future.'
Asia Times
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Asia Times
When Australia should and shouldn't go to war
In 2024, the National Defense Strategy made deterrence Australia's 'primary strategic defense objective.' With writing now underway for the 2026 National Defense Strategy, can Australia actually deter threats to the nation? Traditionally, our defense strategy only asked that our military capabilities 'command respect.' In today's world, however, Australia needs a far more active military posture to defend itself. To effectively deter an adversary, Australia needs the equipment, signals and processes to convince a potentially hostile nation to reconsider the cost of militarily threatening us. A deterrence strategy promises to reduce the likelihood of conflict. It reduces the opportunities for an adversary to score 'cheap' wins by communicating how we could 'deny' their main goal and potentially 'punish' them for their aggression. It forces an adversary to make a choice: back down or risk failing at your objective and starting a more significant confrontation. While we don't know exactly how a future adversary might react, Australia must do more to make our intent clear on how we would respond to a provocation. We are part of an international team researching the ways to do this. This is what we think is needed in the next National Defense Strategy. Creating a credible deterrence posture is not easy. The 2024 defence strategy lists a wide variety of actions that could change an adversary's risk assessment. Some of these things are specific (surveilling and protecting Australia's sea lanes of communication). Others are vague and loosely connected to deterrence (supporting the global rules-based order). To make sure our deterrence message is as clear and effective as possible, the 2026 strategy will need a much tighter policy framework around where Australia would have the power to deter an adversary, and how we would do so. It will also need to detail the specific defence preparations Australia has undertaken to credibly deter threats. Vagueness in language or generalities in proposed actions will not cut it. The scholarly literature on how to implement an effective deterrence is largely drawn from Cold War history. Many times, the US and USSR made deliberate efforts to send deterrence signals to the other side. They did this by acquiring new capabilities (such as longer-range missiles) and expanding their nuclear stockpiles, or by conducting military exercises and deploying forces around the world. These messages, however, were often misunderstood. Sometimes, these signals – such as US President John F Kennedy's reinforcement of West Berlin with an additional battalion during the Berlin Crisis of 1961 – made political sense, but less so militarily. One way for Australia to approach this deterrence question is considering the adversary's theory of victory – how they seek to achieve their goal – and then identifying ways to explicitly and publicly show we can disrupt it. For example, after winning the 1982 Falkland Islands War against Argentina, Britain invested significant resources into the Mount Pleasant Air Base on the islands. They are now home to up to 2,000 personnel, enabling significant and rapid reinforcements in the event of future hostilities. Australia is now acquiring significant new strike capabilities. However, even if we increase our defense spending beyond the 3% of GDP currently being discussed, the Australian Defense Force (ADF) will not be able to defend everything across the entire region and the waters around us. We will need to find low-cost defensive actions. Deterring an adversary from attempting a 'cheap win' against Australia, for instance, might require the 'forward presence' of Australian troops far from our own shores. Even if they would not be able to defend against an attack on their own, they could serve as a 'trip wire' force. This means if they were attacked, it would likely compel Australia to go to war. So, let's say Australia has a 'forward presence' of troops stationed in the Cocos Islands, Papua New Guinea or even the Philippines. This signals a credible commitment to use those forces to protect ourselves and our regional partners against a threat. And should these soldiers be killed, it would likely generate public anger and a political insistence on a significant response. While a lot of contemporary military thinking is about how to put robots and drones in harm's way instead of our fellow citizens, some tasks, such as a 'forward presence' deterrence, can likely only be done by humans. All of this means that deterrence is not just about a country's capabilities – going to war is ultimately about politics and human emotion. As such, credibility also depends on practical rituals – such as Britain holding Cabinet meetings in the Falklands and NATO hosting flag parades in the Baltics. These convey a belief over what matters enough to go to war. For Australian deterrence to be more credible, the next iteration of the National Defence Strategy will have to be more explicit than its predecessor in spelling out what Australia would be willing to go to war over. If our government cannot address this now, how are we going to communicate this to an adversary – and convince them of it – in a crisis? The government is understandably reluctant to be specific about the commitments and threats it is willing and able to make in a public document, or to acknowledge the limits to Australia's abilities. But deterring without communicating is a contradiction in terms. We need to be explicit about what would cause Australia to resist or retaliate, even at the cost of war, in order to credibly deter an adversary from taking such an action. This must be at the core of how the 2026 National Defense Strategy approaches deterrence as Australia's 'primary defense objective.' Andrew Carr is associate professor of strategy and Australian defense policy, Australian National University and Stephan Fruehling is professor, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
