The Navy needs a culture change, however, to fully realize this potential. The service still emphasizes “kinetic” solutions — i.e. destroying stuff — over electronic or cyber options, said Adm. Greenert at Sea-Air-Space. “If you’re going to study the
Tomahawk Land Attack Missile and employ it on a ship, it’s a 40-week school” for young sailors, he said. For the standard shipborne electronic warfare system, the
SLQ-32, “it’s a two-week school.”
The service also needs to sharpen its Cold War skills in hiding its radio and radar transmissions, what the military calls “
emissions control” or EMCON. “The kids have got to understand the significance of it, because we haven’t looked at this for a generation,” Greenert told the conference. Meanwhile the number of electronic systems that emit a signal the enemy can track has grown exponentially. That makes warships vulnerable, even the vaunted aircraft carriers.