Department of Defense Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy

The Department is challenged to assure and maintain access, use, fires, and maneuver within the Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS) at home and abroad. This jeopardizes the U.S. military’s ability to sense, command, control, communicate, test, train, protect, and project force effectively. Without the capabilities to assert EMS superiority, the nation’s economic and national security will be exposed to undue and significant risk.

Adversary actions, commercial development, and regulatory constraints impede U.S. forces’ freedom of action in the EMS. Ensuring such freedom of action will require new ways of thinking about access, sharing, and maneuver in the EMS. Our adversaries have recognized DoD’s reliance on EMS-dependent capabilities and are seeking to exploit this vulnerability. They seek to restrict U.S. spectrum access through international forums while they organize, train, and equip their forces for EMS advantage. The Department must also account for the EMS requirements of coalition and commercial partners. These competing spectrum needs result in an increasingly congested, contested, and constrained electromagnetic operational environment (EMOE). Combined, these factors require DoD to reexamine how it gains and maintains control of the EMS.