Marines deploying to Asia for recent exercises learned to hide their command posts, whose tell-tale radio emissions could give away their position to an enemy, by using cheap commercial tech to hide in plain sight:
Using host nation WiFi allowed the Marines to blend “right into the environment,” Siverts said. Marines took cellphones on the deployment and accessed the mobile network with local SIM cards so their network wouldn’t stand out. “We’re not able to be detected,” he said.
Communicating that way requires encryption and small form factor communications, he added, referring to communications platforms that are much physically smaller than the platforms they typically use.
Another tool in the Marine Corps’ arsenal is commercial radars that are indistinguishable from commercial fishing vessels, Siverts said.
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Among the Army’s top goals is improving command posts’ ability to avoid enemy fire. That includes making command posts smaller and easier to relocate, as well as reducing their electro-magnetic profiles.
“If we slog around the battlefield with massive operations centers, which are difficult to set up and often contractor-supported, we will get pounded,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said in October at the annual Association of the United States Army meeting.
“The Russians are learning this lesson several times a day [in Ukraine]. And we will not learn the hard way.”
Yes, once there’s a rich enough environment, general principles of camouflage should apply to radio communication much the same way as to ghillie suits. If one can keep a relatively low profile, why stand out?
“Not obvious” does not equal “not able to be detected”, however. Preventing detection is good, sure. But it’s fragile, like any security-by-obscurity.
You may fool some people for some time. But the anomaly still exists, and once detected, the tracks can be identified and followed. Or as one good comic put it, even if you make up evidence of your death, the intrinsic flaw in this plan is that you’re not really dead.
Obscurity is the strongest form of security.