The ‘Growler’ Signal-Jamming Jet That Helped Capture Nicolás Maduro
Pentagon’s go-to electronic-warfare aircraft is a key tool in the military’s renewed focus in this type of conflict
- The Boeing EA-18G Growler, an electronic-warfare jet, likely played a key role in overwhelming Venezuela’s air defenses.
- Electronic warfare, targeting or protecting signals, has seen a resurgence following its extensive use in the Ukraine war.
- The U.S. had paid less attention to electronic warfare after the end of the Cold War, leaving some military analysts to question whether it had fallen behind Russia and China.
Among the more than 150 U.S. warplanes that swarmed over Venezuela this past weekend was the Growler, a jet that attacks signals, not people.
The Boeing EA-18G Growler is a specialist in electronic warfare, a once neglected part of combat that has enjoyed a renaissance following its mass use in the Ukraine war. The Growler, which is flown by a Navy squadron nicknamed the “Zappers,” likely played a key role in Venezuela, where air defenses were quickly overwhelmed.
In electronic warfare, communication, radar and other signals are targeted or protected.
The plane, based on Boeing’s F/A-18F Super Hornet, is a stalwart of U.S. electronic warfare, a field that mainly withered after the Cold War, said Thomas Withington, an electronic-warfare expert at the Royal United Services Institute think tank.
“The Growler forms the mainstay of U.S. air power’s EW component and would have located Venezuelan radars, jammed them and performed a similar task with military communications,” he said, referring to electronic warfare by its initials.
This weekend the U.S. used a host of aircraft—including F-22s, F-35s, F-18s jet fighters, B1 bombers and drones—to suppress Venezuelan air defense and communications as special forces seized the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.
While the U.S. was easily able to fly into Venezuela, this was against a less sophisticated enemy with decent but limited quantities of air defense, said Nick Cunningham, a defense analyst at Agency Partners, a research firm.
The tactics employed “would probably be less effective against a well-equipped near-peer adversary such as Russia or China,” he said.
In Venezuela, the Growler and other U.S. aircraft were able to easily work around the country’s aging, predominantly Soviet- and Russian-made air-defense systems.
Venezuela had, for instance, 12 S-300 missile-defense systems, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank. Versions of this widely used Soviet-developed system were also easily bypassed and destroyed by Israel’s air force during their assaults on Iran last year.
Venezuela also has some Chinese radar systems, though those it has shown off were older models, according to Janes, a defense-intelligence company.
Electronic warfare isn’t new, with the British Navy jamming and intercepting radio communications as far back as the start of the last century.
For the U.S., more recent conflicts in Afghanistan and the Middle East required less electronic warfare. That led to concern that the Pentagon had ignored the field.
Then came the Ukraine war, which is widely considered history’s biggest electronic-warfare conflict. Militaries have been scrambling for new capabilities since.
“EW is not as well understood by people, and it is not as visible or catchy as buying fighter planes or ships,” said Frank Kendall, who served as the U.S. Air Force secretary during the Biden administration. “But it is critically important as we have seen in Ukraine.”
In Ukraine, the mass use of drones brought opportunities to jam and spoof their signals. Russia has developed a particular expertise in the field and has also jammed U.S. equipment such as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or Himars.
That can be done as simply as bombarding a drone or rocket with signals that drown out the connection to their operator or satellite guidance.
But platforms such as the Growler, first delivered in 2008, have more in their tool kits. They, for instance, can simulate multiple aircraft in an enemy’s radar by sampling its pulse and sending that back, said RUSI’s Withington.
The Growler also carries so-called anti-radiation missiles that detect and then destroy an adversary’s radar.
Almost all modern aircraft use electronic warfare, mainly to defend their own communications. The U.S. F-35 jet fighter has a particularly potent capability, mainly produced by Britain’s BAE Systems, analysts say.
But the Growler bristles with electronic-warfare equipment, much of which it carries in large pods under its wings and belly. It also has a crew of two, one of whom specializes in electronic warfare. Its price in 2021 was around $67 million.
Boeing referred questions to the U.S. Navy, which didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.
Electronic warfare has become one of the defense industry’s most lucrative businesses. While large U.S. defense companies don’t break out sales related to electronic warfare in their results, European peers report some of their highest margins in this field.
MBDA, the European missile maker, is marketing a missile whose purpose is to scramble communications and radars. Companies sell decoys, which trail planes or ships, sometimes looking like a missile, and emit signals to confuse adversaries into targeting it instead of its mother ship.
To defend against signal jamming, militaries are starting to communicate via lasers, where able. Russia and Ukraine have gone old school and connect many of their drones to fiber-optic cables.
Artificial intelligence is presenting further opportunities for electronic warfare.
Analysts wonder, though, if the U.S. and Europe have fallen behind China, in particular. For instance, updates to the Growler’s electronic-warfare pods, which the U.S. relies on to protect its air fleets, have been delayed.
“Progress in the program has been painfully slow,” said Kendall, the former Air Force secretary.