JAPAN'S SIGINT CHALLENGE

While Japan has long been involved in the electronic warfare domain, the country’s navy needs to enhance its strategic EW capabilities.

- Thomas Withington

Japan is an Electronic Warfare (EW) veteran. In an incident now worthy of the EW Hall of Fame, 116 years ago, the crew of a Royal Navy ‘Eclipse’ class protected cruiser stationed in the Suez Canal found that they could intercept Russian Navy High Frequency (three megahertz/MHz to 30MHz) radio communications. The Communications Intelligence (COMINT) gathered by the crew of HMS Diana on 28 January 1904 warned that the fleet of Tsar Nicholas II, who would be the last Emperor of Russia, was mobilising and heading into the Pacific. The intelligence was duly passed to the UK’s ally Japan, with the Imperial Japanese Navy performing a surprise attack on the Imperial Russian Navy stationed at Port Arthur, which today resides on the coast of Liaoning province in the northeast of the People’s Republic of China. The Russo-Japanese War was now underway.

COMINT collection would be performed by Japan during the conflict, with Russian communications intercepted and their codes broken. Over a century later, Japan continues to be heavily involved in the collection of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) with the country’s JMSDF (Japan Maritime SelfDefence Force), like the country’s other armed services, reliant on this intelligence. SIGINT refers to the communications intelligence, and electronic intelligence, the latter of which mainly pertains to radar transmissions, collecting by SIGINT practitioners.

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