The top marine wants to know what’s going to happen to the military’s electronic warfare capability—since the Air Force has backed off the B-52 standoff jammer and the Navy’s EA-18G Growler is really only an interim fix for the soon-to-retire EA-6B Prowler. Gen. Michael Hagee, Marine Corps Commandant, believes it is high time to decide which service will have the mission. The Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps have shared the duty using the Prowler ever since USAF retired the EF-111. He told reporters in Washington today that he thinks the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has “tremendous EA capability.” Add some EW pods and the JSF, he says, would be far more effective than the Growler. But for Hagee the key decision right now is who will own the mission. He asserts, “As a nation … we need to have a discussion on who’s going to provide electronic attack capability.”
Raytheon, a division of defense giant RTX, recently announced a multiyear deal with the Pentagon to increase annual production of the Air Force’s primary dogfighting missile by more than 50 percent from two years ago.
