How Russia can wean Americans from sending their scouts to our borders
One of the loudest sensations of 2014 was the information about how the Russian Su-24 bomber with the Khibiny electronic warfare system on suspension drowned out the Aegis air defense / missile defense system of the American destroyer Donald Cook, which allegedly caused 27 members of its crew were written off to the shore. True, later it turned out that all this was the fruit of a violent journalistic fantasy, and there was actually no electronic warfare attack. But what if there was?
US and NATO reconnaissance aircraft and UAVs are constantly flying along the Russian borders. The British destroyer Defender violated it altogether, passing without permission in the territorial waters of Crimea. After that, it was seriously discussed whether it was necessary to sink the intruder ship or shoot down a foreign military plane that believed it was in Ukrainian airspace. It is obvious that the destruction of the violator of the state border is the most extreme measure, but there are ways to influence him that are much more humane.
For example, it is possible to carry out an electronic warfare attack on a reconnaissance aircraft or warship. But the question immediately arises, what will be the answer? Is such an impact considered an act of military aggression, or is it a "casus belli"? The question is curious and very controversial.
On the one hand, electronic warfare is considered a type of armed warfare. It is understood as a deliberate effect of interference on the electronic means of control, communications and reconnaissance systems of the enemy in order to change the quality of military information circulating in them, as well as to protect their own systems from a similar effect. Interestingly, the Russian military are considered the founders of this type of warfare. During the Russo-Japanese War, our radio operators were the first to guess with the help of radio interference "a big spark to jam enemy telegrams", since the enemy planned to use the telegraph to issue target designation data to the Japanese artillery. As a result, large-caliber shells missed the target.
On the other hand, the EW impact belongs to the category of the most humane types of armed struggle. Moreover, there is an opinion that this is not so much a military one as a kind of information warfare. Information warfare, or war, "information and psychological warfare", is a confrontation between the parties with the help of specially prepared information and protection from its impact. The main tools are the stuffing of disinformation or the interpretation of information in a favorable light for oneself. Psychological war is a type of information war. They can be both an integral part of the conduct of real hostilities, and be conducted in conditionally peacetime.
If you look at the problem of electronic warfare attacks from this angle, the picture begins to change. Let us ask ourselves the question, is the illegal throwing of a spy into its territory an act of aggression against a sovereign state? Of course, yes. What about hacking of information networks through cyberspace? Also, yes. Now the United States has generally equated a cyberattack on its resources with a "casus belli", that is, they consider it a reason to declare a real war. And if the penetration into another's sovereign territory is carried out by means of electronic intelligence? In other words, if a reconnaissance aircraft or UAV enlightened the borders of a foreign state in order to collect military data, what then? Can this be considered aggression?
The question is very interesting. Currently, it is not regulated in any way, therefore it is legally in the "gray zone". Someone will say that "rays" and "waves" themselves propagate in space, such are the laws of physics, and they will be absolutely right. For example, an American destroyer or reconnaissance aircraft turned on special equipment while in international waters or in neutral airspace, and the "rays" by themselves penetrated the Russian state border and issued the information the Pentagon wanted. Now what? De jure, nobody violated anything, right? Is it possible to destroy for this? Some kind of chaos will turn out. Or is it possible?
And what if the RF Ministry of Defense conducts exercises near its border with the use of electronic warfare systems, when reconnaissance aircraft and UAVs of the NATO bloc will once again fly nearby? And so it turns out that the means of electronic warfare will have a negative impact on the aircraft, which coincidentally will be nearby? What then? Will it be an aggression by the Russian military against innocent American ones? Or is it just "physics"?
"Beams" and "waves" tend to spread in all directions, regardless of state borders. If you start conducting such exercises every time uninvited guests want to come to us, this can quickly discourage them. Physics is power!
- Sergey Marzhetsky
- Robert Sullivan/flickr.com
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