Bigger weapons won’t be the focus of the next arms race, it has to do with cleaner signals

By Manpreet Singh

The Navy relieved Cmdr. William Coulter of command in December 2023 while he was assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron 136, known as the “Gauntlets,” on the USS Carl Vinson in the Western Pacific. As is nearly always the case in similar situations, the official explanation was “a loss of confidence in his ability to command.” The Navy has never publicly linked the decision to any particular maritime incident, and no additional information was provided.

This has not stopped a competing narrative from gaining traction that Coulter’s squadron engaged in a protracted electronic warfare standoff with Chinese forces near the South China Sea, disabling the GPS of an American carrier strike group and forcing its withdrawal.

For almost two years, versions of this assertion have circulated across Chinese-language defense websites and military enthusiast publications. More lately, AI-narrated YouTube explainers that repackage outdated, unsubstantiated material as groundbreaking research have given it fresh life. Tracking the claim back to its source, it seems to have originated primarily on a website that openly admits to regularly reprinting material from “anonymous or unspecified sources” with no way to verify where it came from. No U.S. military statement, congressional testimony or mainstream defence publication has confirmed a 12-hour GPS blackout or an American retreat.

Before continuing, it is important to be clear about this distinction: the electronic-warfare narrative around the command change is not a documented truth, but the command change itself is. It is precisely the kind of thing that turns serious policy conversations about a genuine issue into fan fiction when the two are confused.

Because the embellishment is unnecessary for the true issue.

If you remove the unverified South China Sea anecdote, this is still a true, documented story. During a discussion with practitioners at the Association of Old Crows’ 2023 electronic warfare conference, Air Force Maj. Gen. David Snoddy said something unusually frank for a serving officer: The U.S. still has a technological advantage in the electromagnetic spectrum, but it’s smaller than it used to be, and the goal is to widen that gap again.

Similar confessions were made by other generals at the same conference regarding China and Russia considering the electromagnetic spectrum as a key strategic priority, something the United States did not do throughout the post-Cold War decades.

Some of this is just math. The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the workhorse of the American surface fleet, entered service in 1991. Most of the PLA Navy’s large surface combatant fleet is the newest by far, having been commissioned in the late 2010s.

In general, newer sensor suites, electronic warfare systems, and less legacy constraints to work around are associated with modern hulls. That’s a simple result of two navies modernizing on radically different schedules and budgets; it’s not alarmism.

That’s where quantum technology comes in, and it’s a more interesting story than the EW anecdote that keeps coming up.

Publications that cover military and defence technology have been tracking what some are calling the “second quantum revolution” — a move away from technologies that simply exploit the statistical behaviour of quantum systems, like the transistors and lasers that power today’s modern electronics, towards technologies that directly manipulate individual quantum particles. That creates a number of very important opportunities, especially for electronic warfare.

With quantum sensors, a much larger part of the electromagnetic spectrum could be detected, and with a far higher sensitivity than with systems today. Or they may be able to scan large bandwidths simultaneously rather than sequentially, making it harder to hide weak or transient signals. Since trying to intercept the key modifies it in an observable way, quantum key distribution provides communication security that is resistant to interception as a matter of physics rather than computing difficulties. Quantum radar, which is still mostly theoretical but further out, may be more resilient to jamming and more covert in its own emissions.

This is not being handled like science fiction by NATO. The alliance’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic has a specific quantum technology track, and its 2021 emerging and disruptive technologies plan identified quantum as a priority topic. Similar investments are being made by the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Russia, Canada, and France. This is not a press release from Silicon Valley disguised as strategy; rather, it is an actual multinational race.

However, the breathless version of this narrative omits the bit about preparation.

The majority of quantum defense technology is not at a high level of technological preparedness. This is a real limitation rather than a hedge because it indicates that it is still very hard to forecast these systems’ performance once they are taken off the lab bench or when they will be fieldable. This is sometimes framed by analysts as a variation of the Collingridge dilemma, in which you can’t completely comprehend the impact of a technology until it’s widely used, but by then it’s too late to simply redirect or control it.

While some quantum sensing applications are already being assessed in operational settings, the more ambitious quantum EW systems are typically estimated to be five to ten years away from being widely available. However, this timeline is predicated on the field resolving some difficult engineering issues, such as the traditional size, weight, and power tradeoffs that make lab-grade quantum hardware heavy, delicate, and power-hungry, as well as the expense of ruggedizing and scaling any of it for actual deployment.

Furthermore, quantum is not a panacea that will take the place of everything else. RF-over-fiber techniques that protect transmissions from interference, AI-driven “cognitive” electronic warfare that enables systems to react to threats in real time, and modular hardware that can be swiftly modified in response to emerging threats are just a few of the parallel tracks. Rather than instantly changing the battlefield, the realistic picture is a multi-layered one, with quantum adding capacity at the edges over the next ten years.

An unsubstantiated anecdote is not necessary for any of this to be taken seriously.

The truth is that the U.S. military has publicly admitted that it has a narrowing technological advantage in a field it ignored for twenty years following the end of the Cold War, that its main competitor is fielding newer hardware on a quicker timeline, and that practically every major military power is pursuing a true next-generation technology on the premise that whoever solves the engineering problems first will gain a long-lasting advantage in sensing, secure communication, and jamming resistance. There are real stakes in that competition, and it merits meaningful reporting.

It doesn’t require a claim about a single incidence that is two years old, poorly supported, and presented as evidence of decline. Program timeframes, fleet age, and documented budget decisions should all support the claim that the United States is losing ground in electronic warfare. The point should be made without the need for a ghost story about a carrier escaping the South China Sea in the dark.

About the author: Manpreet Singh is Assistant Vice President with Genpact. He is based in the U.S. He writes and comments on next-gen advancement and its applications in Data, Tech & AI.

Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed during this series are solely those of the individuals involved–authors.