Airborne Electronic Attack: Achieving Mission Objectives Depends on Overcoming Acquisition Challenges
Highlights
What GAO Found
The Department of Defense’s (DOD) evolving strategy for meeting airborne electronic attack requirements centers on acquiring a family of systems, including traditional fixed wing aircraft, low observable aircraft, unmanned aerial systems, and related mission systems and weapons. DOD analyses dating back a decade have identified capability gaps and provided a basis for service investments, but budget realities and lessons learned from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have driven changes in strategic direction and program content. Most notably, DOD canceled some acquisitions, after which the services revised their operating concepts for airborne electronic attack. These decisions saved money, allowing DOD to fund other priorities, but reduced the planned level of synergy among systems during operations. As acquisition plans have evolved, capability limitations and sustainment challenges facing existing systems have grown, prompting the department to invest in system improvements to mitigate shortfalls.
DOD is investing in new airborne electronic attack systems to address its growing mission demands and to counter anticipated future threats. However, progress acquiring these new capabilities has been impeded by developmental and production challenges that have slowed fielding of planned systems. Some programs, such as the Navy’s EA-18G Growler and the Air Force’s modernized EC-130H Compass Call, are in stable production and have completed significant amounts of testing. Other key programs, like the Navy’s Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile, have required additional time and funding to address technical challenges, yet continue to face execution risks. In addition, certain systems in development may offer capabilities that overlap with one another—a situation brought on in part by DOD’s fragmented urgent operational needs processes. Although services have shared technical data among these programs, they continue to pursue unique systems intended to counter similar threats. As military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan decrease, opportunities exist to consolidate current acquisition programs across services. However, this consolidation may be hampered by DOD’s acknowledged leadership deficiencies within its electronic warfare enterprise, including the lack of a designated, joint entity to coordinate activities. Furthermore, current and planned acquisitions will not fully address materiel-related capability gaps identified by DOD—including some that date back 10 years. Acquisition program shortfalls will exacerbate these gaps.
To supplement its acquisition of new systems, DOD is undertaking other efforts to bridge existing airborne electronic attack capability gaps. In the near term, services are evolving tactics, techniques, and procedures for existing systems to enable them to take on additional mission tasks. These activities maximize the utility of existing systems and better position operators to complete missions with equipment currently available. Longer-term solutions, however, depend on DOD successfully capitalizing on its investments in science and technology. DOD has recently taken actions that begin to address long-standing coordination shortfalls in this area, including designating electronic warfare as a priority investment area and creating a steering council to link capability gaps to research initiatives. These steps do not preclude services from funding their own research priorities ahead of departmentwide priorities. DOD’s planned implementation roadmap for electronic warfare offers an opportunity to assess how closely component research investments are aligned with the departmentwide priority.
Why GAO Did This Study
Airborne electronic attack involves the use of aircraft to neutralize, destroy, or suppress enemy air defense and communications systems. Proliferation of sophisticated air defenses and advanced commercial electronic devices has contributed to the accelerated appearance of new weapons designed to counter U.S. airborne electronic attack capabilities. GAO was asked to assess (1) the Department of Defense’s (DOD) strategy for acquiring airborne electronic attack capabilities, (2) progress made in developing and fielding systems to meet airborne electronic attack mission requirements, and (3) additional actions taken to address capability gaps. To do this, GAO analyzed documents related to mission requirements, acquisition and budget needs, development plans, and performance, and interviewed DOD officials.
Recommendations
GAO recommends that DOD conduct program reviews for certain new, key systems to assess cost, schedule, and performance; determine the extent to which the most pressing capability gaps can be met and take steps to fill them; align service investments in science and technology with the departmentwide electronic warfare priority; and review capabilities provided by certain planned and existing systems to ensure investments do not overlap. DOD agreed with three recommendations and partially agreed with the two aimed at reducing potential overlap among systems. DOD plans to assess coordination among systems, whereas GAO sees opportunities for consolidation, as discussed in the report.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | Given airborne electronic attack programmatic and threat changes since 2002, the Secretary of Defense should conduct program reviews for the Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM), Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (IDECM), Miniature Air Launched Decoy (MALD), and Miniature Air Launched Decoy-Jammer (MALD-J) systems to assess cost, schedule, and performance and direct changes within these investments, as necessary. |
DOD concurred with this recommendation, citing planned program reviews in 2012 of the IDECM and AARGM systems, and a planned 2014 review of the MALD and MALD-J systems. Limitations with AARGM Block 0 effectiveness was revealed in IOT&E and will be addressed by Block 1 upgrade, which is described as a software-only upgrade. Block 1 FOT&E begins FY14 and completes in FY16; all in-service weapons will receive Block 1 update. Software deficiencies with IDECM Block 4 was identified at the 4th In-Process Review in April 2013. Prior to authorization of FY14 production, IPR #5 was conducted in Feb 2014 to evaluate resolution of software deficiencies. The review found software was stable and progressing w/in rebaselined program plan. All corrections have been mapped to software builds. As a result, the FY14 production option was authorized. During IOT&E, several MALD-J vehicles experienced navigational accuracy issues, resulting in DOD deferring FRP authorization to 2015 while program determines appropriate corrective actions to enhance navigation.
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| Department of Defense | Given airborne electronic attack programmatic and threat changes since 2002, the Secretary of Defense should determine the extent to which the most pressing airborne electronic attack capability gaps can best be met-using the assets that are likely to be available-and take steps to fill any potential gaps. |
DOD concurred with this recommendation, citing plans for U.S. Strategic Command to annually assess all DOD electronic warfare capabilities -- including current requirements, current and planned future capabilities, and the supporting investment strategy -- and present this assessment to the Joint Requirements Oversight Council. U.S. Strategic Command has released annual assessments of Electronic Warfare (airborned electronic attack) capabilities in 2013 and 2014.
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| Department of Defense | Given airborne electronic attack programmatic and threat changes since 2002, the Secretary of Defense should align service investments in science and technology with the departmentwide electronic warfare priority, recognizing that budget realities will likely require trade-offs among research areas, and direct changes, as necessary. |
The Department of Defense (DOD) has implemented this recommendation. In 2012, DOD stood up a priority steering council (PSC) for the electronic warfare/electronic protection mission area comprised of officials from the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Office of the Secretary of Defense. The PSC was charged with governing electronic warfare science and technology investment across DOD. To support this activity, DOD developed an investment roadmap, configured with metrics, that outlined a strategy for improving the development of electronic warfare systems and components and better transitioning them to the warfighter. According to DOD, the roadmap would guide long-term budget decisions and influnce near-term investment decisions within each of the service components. According to DOD, the PSC's initial product of a roadmap was briefed to DOD's Science and Technology Executive Committee in May 2014. The department released its Science & Technology roadmap in FY 2015, which reflects industry internal research and development efforts and international bilateral/multi-lateral agreement activities related to electronic warfare.
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| Department of Defense | To ensure that investments in airborne electronic attack systems are cost-effective and to prevent unnecessary overlap, the Secretary of Defense should review the capabilities provided by the Marine Corps's Intrepid Tiger II and Army's Communications Electronic Attack with Surveillance and Reconnaissance (CEASAR) systems and identify opportunities for consolidating these efforts, as appropriate. |
The Department of Defense (DOD) reported in July 2013 that it had reviewed the CEASAR and Intrepid Tiger acquisitions and determined that consolidation would not be beneficial. According to DOD's findings, although CEASAR and Intrepid Tiger both currently address irregular warfare threats, there are significant differences in current and planned capabilities and host platforms. According to DOD, only 5 CEASAR systems are planned, and the system is being assessed as a potential bridge to an Army program of record. However, DOD stated that Intrepid Tiger has achieved an early operational capability configuration, which is being expanded to include new host platforms and capabilities.
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| Department of Defense | To ensure that investments in airborne electronic attack systems are cost-effective and to prevent unnecessary overlap, the Secretary of Defense should assess Air Force and Navy plans for developing and acquiring new expendable jamming decoys, specifically those services' respective MALD-J and Airborne Electronic Attack Expendable initiatives, to determine if these activities should be merged. |
As of December 2016, the Navy had assessed and determined it will no longer pursue plans to develop and acquire expendable jamming decoys. Although the Department Of Defense (DOD) recognized the potential for some degree of commonality between the two systems, the Navy made the determination to not yet establish the Airborne Electronic Attack Expendable initiative as a formal acquisition program of record and has no plans to do so. Should the Navy, at some point in the future, decide to pursue an expendable jamming decoy, DOD should take additional steps to assess potential issues of duplication with the Air Force's existing expendable jamming decoy program, pursuant to GAO's March 2012 recommendation.
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