Electronic Warfare includes military action involving the use of electromagnetic and directed energy to control the electromagnetic spectrum or to attack the enemy.

Electronic Warfare allows Soldiers to detect, disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy enemy systems, and protect against the adversary's ability to do the same.

The use of electromagnetic-enabled technologies increased drastically during Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom and continues to increase globally.

The convergence of CERDEC's unique technical expertise in Electronic Warfare, Signals Intelligence, Cyber and Tactical Network Science enables effective, interoperable jamming and communications systems operations to defeat the enemy and protect Soldiers.

Traditional applications of EW include threat warning and countermeasures in support of platform protection including rocket propelled grenades, radio-controlled improvised explosive devices and other command and control communications by both military and commercial threat. These efforts have proved to be effective in numerous circumstances, but not without tradeoffs in communications effectiveness and increased size, weight and power requirements for the integration of additional special purpose systems into Army platforms.

Today, the use of EW technologies has expanded to include support to Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (Electronic Support), Force Protection (Electronic Countermeasures), and Force Application (Electronic Attack) and is intended for integration on dismounts, ground vehicle and airborne platforms.

As communications and non-communications technologies become more complex and prolific, there is a need to rapidly deliver effective EW capabilities against multiple complex threats simultaneously in a more efficient, agile and holistic manner while mitigating undesirable tradeoffs.

Important Army technical initiatives in EW include leveraging open and modular system architecture and common hardware; communications and other related C4ISR functions to reduce size, weight and power; and developing integrated architectures that enable rapid component development in EW and cyber innovation and evolution.