An organizational assessment of the United States military's ability to control the electromagnetic spectrum in the 21st century

Abstract

The United States (U.S.) has the best-trained and equipped military in the world; however; these factors do not necessarily equate to success in operations. Information is a vital component of warfare that facilitates success. Electronic warfare (EW) organizations in the U.S. military are tasked to control battlefield information flow throughout the range of military operations. Historically, the U.S. has effectively accomplished this mission; however, recent events reveal symptoms of a decline in America's ability to exploit, attack, and protect information systems. This thesis executed a contingency theory based organizational analysis of command level EW organizations responsible for EW plans and management within the Department of Defense. The collective assessment using the combined open systems model and ORGCON (Burton et al., 1998) expert system revealed the organization has not adequately adjusted to the dynamic environment of the twenty first century. Implementation of recommended changes to the EW strategic task, leadership rank structure, education system, and division of EW may assist the U.S. military to maintain its information advantage in future operations.