America’s Electronic Warriors Need a Boost

Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that precision-guided NATO munitions have been veering off course and drones are falling from the sky in Ukraine: Russia’s military introduced jamming to the battlefield during its war with Japan in 1904. For the Pentagon, though, it should set off alarms.

As recent reports make clear, Russian jamming has had a devastating effect in Ukraine — slashing the accuracy of Excalibur GPS-guided artillery shells, provided by the US, from 55% to as low as 6%. Ground-launched small-diameter bombs — another pricey US munition — proved so ineffective that Washington stopped delivering them. Similar problems have plagued other US weapons, such as Joint Direct Attack Munitions and even the Starlink satellite internet service, although patches seem to have helped. At one point, Ukraine was losing 10,000 drones a month.