US Space Force To Deploy Advanced Electronic Jammers To Disrupt Enemies’ Satellite Communications Signals

Satellite antennas used in the Counter Communications System 10.2 electronic jammer developed by L3Harris under contract to the U.S. Space Force. Credit: L3Harris  

Space News: Space Force satellite jammers shut down enemy communications, temporarily 

WASHINGTON — U.S. military officials and analysts have warned that China and Russia are building an arsenal of weapons designed to interfere with space-based capabilities of the United States. 

The United States meanwhile is building its own capabilities to counter enemies’ space assets. Most of those systems are classified but the Space Force has made public its plans to deploy advanced electronic jammers to disrupt enemies’ satellite communications signals.  

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WNU Editor: The militarization of space is definitely accelerating.

Are Russian Submarines Tampering With Undersea Cables?

National Interest: Could Russian Submarines Be Tampering With Undersea Cables? 

The ability of an American user to access a website in Europe or vice versa largely depends upon a network of several hundred distinct armored, fiber-optic Submarine Communication Cables that run across around six hundred thousand miles of ocean floor. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: The U.S. has begun responding to the threat, with 2018 defense budget authorizing construction of a second cable-laying/repair ship costing $250 million to supplement the only one currently in U.S. military service, the USS Zeus. Sanctions imposed on Russia in June 2018 have targeted a Russian mini-submarine builder associated with cable-tampering operations.

In 2018 reports have multiplied in the United States and Europe that Russian has intensified its submarine activity around the undersea cables which are essential for the global operation of the internet. 

Yes, you heard that right—the ability of an American user to access a website in Europe or vice versa largely depends upon a network of several hundred distinct armored, fiber-optic Submarine Communication Cables that run across around six hundred thousand miles of ocean floor—and Moscow is dispatching mini submarines apparently to tamper with them.  

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WNU Editor: There are many redundancies in the world's fiber cable network. To be successful to cut-off all communications Russia (or anyone else) will need to conduct a massive attack at the same time. I do not think any country has that capability right now. As to tapping into and monitoring communications ... now that is another story.

The world's cable network map can be seen here (link here).

Underwater Data Cable, Linking The US To Hong Kong Cancelled Because Of Fears Of Chinese Data Theft

A map from December 2017 of undersea data cables

BBC: US-China row moves underwater in cable tangle

An underwater data cable, linking the US to Hong Kong, looks set to be rejected by the US government because of fears of Chinese data theft.

The Pacific Light Cable Network, backed by Google and Facebook, is designed to boost internet speed and capacity.

But a US government committee known as "Team Telecom" has now recommended that the US denies it approval.

The decision is another sign of the growing tension between the US and China, who are in a trade war.

It would reportedly be the first such cable rejected by the US on national security grounds.

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WNU Editor: Besides data theft, there is also the fear that China will be monitoring communications.

U.S. Navy Relys On WWII-Era Communications To Prevent Cyber Snooping

The "bean bag" used in the exercise. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Brian P. Caracci

Popular Mechanics: To Prevent Cyber Snooping, the U.S. Navy Is Relying on WWII-Era Communications

The most secure means of passing messages is also one of the oldest.

The U.S. Navy, anticipating a future when a high-tech enemy could read its electronic communications, is going back to a hack-proof means of sending messages between ships: bean bags. Weighted bags with messages inside are passed among ships at sea by helicopters.

In a future conflict with a tech-savvy opponent, the U.S. military could discover even its most advanced, secure communications penetrated by the enemy. Secure digital messaging, voice communications, video conferencing, and even chats could be intercepted and decrypted for its intelligence value. This could give enemy forces an unimaginable advantage, seemingly predicting the moves and actions of the fleets at sea with uncanny accuracy.

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WNU Editor: This method may be slow, but it definitely cannot be intercepted.

The U.S. Military Wants To Put A Communications Device In A Soldier's Mouth

The Sonitus "Molar Mic"

Defense One: The Military Now Has Tooth Mics For Invisible, Hands-Free Radio Calls

The future of battlefield communications is resting comfortably near your back gums.

Next time you pass someone on the street who appears to be talking to themselves, they may literally have voices inside their head…and be a highly trained soldier on a dangerous mission. The Pentagon has inked a roughly $10 million contract with a California company to provide secure communication gear that’s essentially invisible.

Dubbed the Molar Mic, it’s a small device that clips to your back teeth. The device is both microphone and “speaker,” allowing the wearer to transmit without any conspicuous external microphone and receive with no visible headset or earpiece. Incoming sound is transmitted through the wearer’s bone matter in the jaw and skull to the auditory nerves; outgoing sound is sent to a radio transmitter on the neck, and sent to another radio unit that can be concealed on the operator. From there, the signal can be sent anywhere.

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WNU Editor: This is unique.

In Ukraine Smartphones Might Be The Safest Way To Communicate

Ukrainian army veteran Yaroslav Sherstyuk, right, developer of the MilChat messaging app, makes a presentation to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, third from left, and other Ukrainian military officials. (Photo courtesy Yaroslav Sherstyuk)

Nolan Peterson, Daily Signal: A Lesson for NATO From Ukraine: In a War With Russia, Smartphones Might Be the Safest Way to Communicate

KYIV, Ukraine—After four years of constant combat against Russia and its separatist proxies in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian troops have learned the value of creativity in warfare.

The battlefield innovations in technology and tactics that Ukrainian troops have made on the fly in eastern Ukraine reflect the sort of forward thinking, flexible mindset needed by NATO military officials to counter the Russian hybrid warfare threat.

For instance, the Ukrainians have sometimes used commercially available smartphone messaging apps as a primary means of military communication—especially in cases when combined Russian-separatist forces’ artillery has homed in on the Ukrainians’ radio signals.

“We mainly used encrypted walkie-talkies, but this was not reliable for very long,” said Alexey Kelt, a 23-year-old Ukrainian combat veteran of the war in eastern Ukraine. “There have been cases when the shells came after we talked on the encrypted radio.”

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WNU Editor: I will be very wary of using smartphones. Recent revelations on how U.S. tech companies like Facebook and Google can track us via through our phones should make everyone pause on using this tools to communicate.

This Is How The U.S. Will Fight A War If Their Satellites Have Been Destroyed

Aerospace & Defence News

Kris Osborn, National Interest: This Is How the U.S. Army Will Fight If American Satellites are Smashed

The Army is evaluating a new vehicle-mounted radio technology that enables Strykers, tactical trucks, HMMWVs and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles to share real-time, combat-relevant information across the force.

The new radios, called the Mid-tier Networking Vehicular Radio, was recently assessed in various combat scenarios to include rugged, mountainous terrain, woodland areas and dense vegetation to assess its ability to relay IP packets of info through various high-bandwidth waveforms, service officials told Scout Warrior.

A concept behind this technology, referred to as software programmable radio, is to enable mission command tactical information sharing across the force in a combat environment in the event that satellite systems are disabled due to an enemy attack.

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WNU Editor: The U.S. is also developing the means to use GPS systems when they have been knocked out ....  Air Force jam-proof reference system ready to support testing (GPS World).

U.S. Intelligence Raising Concerns That Russian Subs And Spy Ships Are Operating Near Undersea Cables

A map of undersea cables. (TeleGeography)

New York Times: Russian Ships Near Data Cables Are Too Close for U.S. Comfort

WASHINGTON — Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict.

The issue goes beyond old worries during the Cold War that the Russians would tap into the cables — a task American intelligence agencies also mastered decades ago. The alarm today is deeper: The ultimate Russian hack on the United States could involve severing the fiber-optic cables at some of their hardest-to-access locations to halt the instant communications on which the West’s governments, economies and citizens have grown dependent.

While there is no evidence yet of any cable cutting, the concern is part of a growing wariness among senior American and allied military and intelligence officials over the accelerated activity by Russian armed forces around the globe. At the same time, the internal debate in Washington illustrates how the United States is increasingly viewing every Russian move through a lens of deep distrust, reminiscent of relations during the Cold War.

Update #1: U.S. concerned by Russian operations near undersea cables: NY Times -- Reuters
Update #2: US intelligence fears Russia could crash internet by cutting subsea cables -- The Independent

WNU Editor: This is what the Russians are probably doing .... The Creepy, Long-Standing Practice of Undersea Cable Tapping (Olga Khazan, The Atlantic).

99% Of The World's International Communications Goes Through Undersea Cables

Starosielski thought the subject would be boring, but she instead wrote 'The Undersea Network,' one of the first books on the topic. Nicole Starosielski

Douglas Main, Newsweek: Undersea Cables Transport 99 Percent of International Data

Things at the bottom of the sea: pale fish, manganese nodules, plastic trash and cables. Lots of cables.

In our wireless, satellite-broadcasted world, it’s easy to forget that most of our electronic communications still run through wires. This includes the vast majority of international calls, text messages and Internet transmissions, which must be ferried through cables that stretch across continents at the bottom of the ocean.

These undersea cables are easy to forget, since they are well out of sight and mind. But without them, the world as we know it would cease to exist, and their history is fascinating, says Nicole Starosielski, an assistant professor of media, culture and communication at New York University. Starosielski first looked into the topic while in grad school at U.C. Santa Barbara, at her adviser’s behest; she thought it would be boring, but she instead found herself enthralled, and ended up writing one of the first books on the topic called The Undersea Network.

WNU Editor: I always assumed that most communications was done by satellites .... and a lot is .... but when it comes to international data ...i it appears that cables are the rule. When looking at the maps, it appears that it is the U.S., the Suez Canal, Singapore, and Hong Kong that are the critical choke points.

How Advances In Communications Is Changing The Battlefield

U.S. Army Spc. Jeremy A. Pouliot of Saint Michael, Minn., psychological operations, answers Jalalabad high school students’ questions ranging from requirements to join the military to security in Afghanistan. The event was held at Forward Operating Base Fenty in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province at 2 p.m. Oct. 7. The Skype conference is part of the State Department’s Global Connection and Exchange program. Dvids

Technology Advances For Soldiers A Double-Edged Sword On Battlefield -- Stars and Stripes/The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Robert Brooke heard bullets humming past his head.

Moments later, when his first firefight in Iraq ended and his men were accounted for, he pulled out a cellphone and called his father — who was sitting thousands of miles away in an Applebee's restaurant.

“He said, ‘We got them. ... It was really fun,' ” recalled Roger Brooke of Swissvale. “I'm in Applebee's, and he's standing on top of a Humvee behind a 50-caliber gun. What was interesting for me was, I was speaking in a very upbeat voice, but my wife said the color just drained from my face. I was sitting there, completely ashen.”

Roger Brooke, 60, a native of South Africa who served in the military there as a paratrooper in the 1970s, could not have called his father seconds after a gunfight to provide details.

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My Comment: One can only expect even more advances in communications and technology .... advances that would probably make the past few years archaic in comparison.

Army To Introduce It's Battlefield Network This October

Photo from KitUp/Military.com

It Only Took The Army 16 Years And 2 Wars to Deploy This Network -- Danger Room

In October, the Army will do something it’s wanted to do for more than a decade: send a pair of combat brigades to a warzone equipped with a new data network, and the hardware to operate it. It’ll let more than a thousand troops rapidly send voice, text, imagery and data across a warzone and to a soldier on patrol. It’s a milestone, following years of aspirations, setbacks and adjustments. And it arrives pretty much too late for the wars.

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Update #1: Army Strips Down Expectations -- And Battle Network -- For Faster Fielding -- Aol Defense
Update #2: Army Battlefield Network: Winners and Losers -- National Defense

My Comment: Only 16 years?

In Search For That 'Perfect' Military Radio

Sgt. Ryan Pike, left, and Staff Sgt. Altaf Swati erect a tactical satellite radio antenna while on patrol in Afak, Iraq. | Department of Defense/MCT

Army Seeks 'Perfect' Radio, Creates Boondoggle -- McClathcy News

WASHINGTON — As several dozen soldiers from the U.S. Army's Task Force Rock drove into Afghanistan's Chowkay Valley one morning in March 2010, Taliban fighters immediately began moving into ambush positions along a higher ridge. The force's mission was to protect a U.S. reconstruction team as it met with village leaders, but it was stuck in place as the Taliban reached their fighting posts.

What tied the soldiers down were their radios: a forest of plastic and metal cubes sprouting antennae of different lengths and sizes. They had short-range models for talking with the reconstruction team, longer-range versions for reaching headquarters 25 miles away and a backup satellite radio in case the mountains blocked the transmission. An Air Force controller carried his own radio for talking to jet fighters overhead and a separate radio for downloading streaming video from the aircraft.

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My Comment: It's the little things that can make a big impact on the battlefield. Radios are one of those things. But spending billions to have a better one .... and still not having it .... something is wrong

Making It Easier For Soldiers To Connect Back Home

‘Cheetahs’ Offer Swift Connection Home For Deployed Troops -- U.S. Department of Defense

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4, 2011 – Deployed service members often count on connections home -- whether it’s e-mail, Skype, Facebook or Twitter -- for encouragement, comfort or just a welcome diversion.

But while Internet access has become a foregone conclusion on many large bases in Afghanistan, it’s a different case in the more remote forward locations. Troops there may not have Internet access for weeks or months at a time.

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My Comment: I cannot help but think that this must be a big hit with the troops in the field.

The Day That Our Communications Grid Died

Artwork showing space debris in low and geostationary Earth orbit. Space debris includes thousands of inactive satellites, fragments of broken up spacecraft and equipment lost by astronauts. This artwork is based on density data, but is not to scale Photo: European Space Agency/Science Photo Library

Space So Full Of Junk That A Satellite Collision Could Destroy Communications On Earth -- The Telegraph

Space is so littered with debris that a collision between satellites could set off an “uncontrolled chain reaction” capable of destroying the communications network on Earth, a Pentagon report warned.

The volume of abandoned rockets, shattered satellites and missile shrapnel in the Earth’s orbit is reaching a “tipping point” and is now threatening the $250 billion (£174bn) space services industry, scientists said.

A single collision between two satellites or large pieces of “space junk” could send thousands of pieces of debris spinning into orbit, each capable of destroying further satellites.

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My Comment: There is a lot of redundancy in our communications grid .... still .... a perfect storm of disruptions could result in severe disruptions that will impact everything .... including our military that is dependent on uninterrupted communication networks.

Darpa Searches For Additional Ways To Jam Enemy Communications

A U.S. Soldier in Iraq Using a Tactical Radio U.S. Army

DARPA's Smart BLADE Will Cut Enemy Communications On The Battlefield -- Popular Science

Further solidifying its reputations for cutting edge battlefield tech and badass acronyms, DARPA has awarded BAE systems $8.4 million to develop its BLADE program (for Behavioral Learning for Adaptive Electronic Warfare), a system of algorithms that can automatically identify and jam threatening wireless communications.

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New Submarine Communications Scheme Will Bring Tweeting To The Ocean Depths

Communications at Speed and Depth Lockheed Martin

From Popular Science:

We can now tweet from the International Space Station and make phone calls from the summit of Mount Everest, so why can't we get any check our email from the ocean floor? A new Lockheed Martin program, plainly named Communications at Speed and Depth, will plug deep-diving stealth submarines into the DoD's Global Information Grid, just like any other surface vessel.

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My Comment: Running silent and running deep .... but still staying in touch.

A New Way For Subs To Communicate?

An artist's conception of how the optical modem could function at a deep ocean cabled observatory. Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) collect sonar images (downward bands of light) and other data at a hydrothermal vent site and transmit the data through an optical modem to receivers stationed on moorings in the ocean. The moorings are connected to a cabled observatory, and the data are sent back to scientists on shore. Scientists, in turn, can send new instructions to the AUVs via the optical modem as well. (Credit: E. Paul Oberlander, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Optical System Promises To Revolutionize Undersea Communications -- Science Daily

Science Daily (Feb. 25, 2010) — In a technological advance that its developers are likening to the cell phone and wireless Internet access, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists and engineers have devised an undersea optical communications system that -- complemented by acoustics -- enables a virtual revolution in high-speed undersea data collection and transmission.

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My Comment: This type of tech is impressive.

Air Force Uses Airborne Lasers to Create High-Speed Data Links

Airborne Laser Link Air Force phone home Brian Rhea, Director, Corporate Communications, AOptix Technologies

From Popular Science:

Researchers have tested the laser links at distances of almost 22 miles during flight.

Manned Air Force jets and drones could soon send high quality video and audio by using ultra-high bandwidth lasers, transmitting critical battlefield data faster than ever. The Air Force Office of Scientific Research has conducted experiments that transmit data without interference across almost 22 miles, both in the air and on the ground.

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Run Silent Run Deep Submarines Of The Future Could Get A Communications Upgrade U.S. Navy

Run Silent Run Deep Submarines of the future could get a communications upgrade
U.S. Navy

From Popular Science:

A physicist claims that the "ghost particles" of our world could help communicate with underwater submariners.

Submariners should brace for some crazy science to match those Crazy Ivan maneuvers. A physicist says that ghost-like neutrinos that pass easily through just about everything could provide a future method of communication with deep sea submarines.

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My Comment: This type of tech always excites me .... but if the U.S. Navy should become serious about it .... I suspect that much of this research will become classified.

Developing System Gives Hope To Improved Battlefield Communications

From Defense Talk:

WASHINGTON: Having a conversation interrupted by a lost cell phone signal is annoying. But for those serving in a combat zone, losing connectivity can be deadly.

A Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program is well on its way toward developing a system that prevents disruptions in communication signals, and when they do occur, ensures the message doesn't disappear into never-never-land.

DARPA launched the Disruption Tolerant Networking program three years ago to eliminate dropped messages that occur due to interference in the communication path, explained Preston Marshall, the program manager.

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My Comment: I have lost count on how times I have read stories in which breakdowns in communications resulted in casualties and lost of life. If new developments in technology can change these dynamics,I am all for it.