In 2013, the Chief of Naval Operations’ Strategic Studies Group (SSG) concluded the Navy must “take full advantage of the electromagnetic environment in all areas of warfare . . . to maintain maritime freedom of action.”1 Since the SSG’s report, the Navy has made electromagnetic maneuver warfare (EMW) a priority. It’s time to elevate EMW education to the operational level of war.
The Navy released its concept for EMW in 2017. This document is classified, limiting EMW awareness to the Navy information warfare community, and is tailored to operators on the “waterfront” who are tactically focused. However, it highlights the “need to include all appropriate education at officer and enlisted schoolhouses, Naval Postgraduate School, and the Naval War College.”2 Former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert noted, “Future conflicts will be won in a new arena—that of the electromagnetic spectrum and cyberspace. We must merge, then master, those realms.”3 To that end, the Naval War College, the leader in joint operational warfare studies, should teach operational EMW.
Currently, Navy EMW training and education are almost exclusively at the tactical level—in tactical memorandums, waterfront schoolhouses, and warfare development centers. But as operational art theorist Milan Vego has observed, “All previous wars were won or lost at the strategic and operational levels, not at the tactical level.”4 Similar to the college’s integration of cyberspace, space, and information operations, adding EMW to the curriculum elevates operational-level application to key areas of study in joint professional military education (JPME), such as operational art and Navy planning.
In addition, the college can include EMW in its Future Warfighting Symposiums—highlighting EMW’s importance operationally and in future conflicts. Such activities help increase visibility and interoperability with the Navy’s sister services and allies. What was once a Navy-only EMW concept will become a joint force multiplier.
EMW offers a forward-leaning, combined-arms warfighting approach across multiple domains. In many respects, it mirrors the evolution of naval air warfare prior to World War II. During the interwar period, Naval War College students recognized the evolving air threat and studied air power’s role in gaining sea control. These pioneers combined untested naval air power concepts with time-tested naval warfare theory, which futurized and navalized aviation. Unknowingly, they prepared the Navy for operations after Pearl Harbor, where a bulk of the battleships were either sunk or damaged, leaving the Navy to rely on aircraft carriers for several months.
The advent of air power changed the calculus for achieving sea control. Similarly, electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) control is now a prerequisite for sea control—it warrants a higher level of study.
The Naval War College’s strategic goals include futurizing and navalizing the college’s curriculum. Incorporating the Navy’s EMW concept into selected coursework accomplishes both. It also aligns with the thinking of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph Dunford, who sees the current threat as trans-regional, all-domain, and multifunctional.5 Dunford recognizes that the joint force must prepare to fight in such a threat environment.
To fight in a highly informationalized and contested environment, the Navy must gain control of the electromagnetic spectrum while denying the same to its enemies, similar to sea control. The Navy’s EMW concept creates advantages in the electromagnetic spectrum through planning and actions that increase awareness and understanding of the operating environment. EMW seeks opportunities to increase agility, resilient command and control, and integrated fires across all Navy missions and warfare areas.
Though the Navy must master the tactical fundamentals of EMW, fully realizing its advantages likely will occur beyond the tactical level. The Naval War College would be remiss if it did not advance EMW operationally and in JPME.
1. “EM Maneuver Warfare,” Strategic Studies Group XXXI report, January 2013, A-23.
2. U.S. Fleet Forces Command, “Navy Concept for Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare,” January 2017, 27. Information extracted is unclassified.
3. ADM Jonathan W. Greenert, USN, “Imminent Domain,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 138, no. 12 (December 2012): 1.
4. Milan Vego, Joint Operational Warfare: Theory and Practice, 2nd ed. (Newport, RI: U.S. Naval War College, 2009), 1-11.
5. GEN Joseph F. Dunford Jr., USMC, “The Character of War and Strategic Landscape Have Changed,” Joint Force Quarterly 89, no. 2 (2018): 2.