Overview The first half of 2025 tightened an already fast moving electronic warfare landscape. Three pressures dominated operational thinking: rapid adaptation on the battlefield driven by low cost ISR and strike drones, accelerated insertion of machine learning into EW sensing and decision loops, and increasing political and regulatory attention on spectrum that civilian and military users both need. Each of these trends is connected. Adversaries that can deny a navigation or comms link force defenders to move beyond single‑function jamming and into layered, data driven countermeasures.

Battlefield trends worth tracking Fiber‑optic tethered FPV drones are now an operational reality in contested areas and they change the rule set for jamming. These systems pay out ultra thin optical cable to keep a high bandwidth, low latency link to the operator, which bypasses RF jammers entirely. Field reporting and technical writeups from multiple outlets documented deployments and tactical effects, notably over intensively contested sectors where operators use tethered drones to image and strike assets that would otherwise be suppressed by jamming. Countermeasures remain physical or multi‑domain: cutting the tether, using nets, deception through decoys, or kinetic defeat of the launch/landing infrastructure. None of those are as simple as flipping a jammer switch.

Saturation jamming and element escalation continued in the strike‑guided munition and FPV markets. Open source and reporting from front‑line analysts show adversaries incrementally increasing antenna elements and frequency agility to blunt crowdsourced jamming. Defenders answered with massed, inexpensive jammers and agile deployment patterns rather than single, high‑value platforms alone. The practical takeaway is familiar: quantity and tactics matter as much as sophistication when the electromagnetic environment is being contested at scale.

AI and signal processing in the EW toolchain The adoption curve for AI and machine learning inside EW moved from experimental to operational planning in H1. Academic surveys and preprint literature from 2024 into early 2025 outlined practical architectures for AI‑driven tactical networking, adaptive spectrum allocation, and signal classification at the edge. Separately, focused work on robust radar modulation recognition and noise‑aware model ensembles showed tangible gains in identifying low SNR emitters and automating emitter classification. Expect more fielded capability that uses ML to reduce operator time on task and to automate countermeasure selection under constrained compute budgets. That said, adversarial ML and the brittleness of models under unseen conditions remain real risks that programs must budget for.

Sensor fusion and autonomy continued to accelerate. Where a decade ago an EW operator might have had only spectrum sweeps and manual cueing, integrated sensor stacks now combine passive RF, EO/IR, and radar returns with model outputs to produce prioritized actions. That integration shortens the observe‑orient‑decide‑act loop. Designers need to balance model explainability and operator trust against the speed benefits of automation on the modern battlefield.

Spectrum policy and the mid‑band tug‑of‑war Demand for mid‑band spectrum remains intense and policy activity in Washington and in international bodies reflected that pressure. The U.S. NTIA articulated its implementation roadmap for the National Spectrum Strategy and continued studies into several bands where federal systems operate, while regulatory tweaks expanded the usable footprint for shared services in CBRS style frameworks. Those moves create opportunities for commercial growth but also raise coordination burdens for defence and civil operators who cannot simply relocate sensitive RF systems overnight. Expect continued study groups and technical working groups to dominate the policy calendar for the next 12 to 36 months.

Civilian impacts and GNSS resilience GNSS jamming and spoofing remained a cross‑sector safety concern. The UN specialized agencies issued joint warnings about increased jamming and spoofing incidents that affect aviation, maritime, and critical infrastructure. Aviation authorities advised crews and operators to prepare for degraded GNSS environments and to monitor equipment integrity closely. On the enforcement side multiple jurisdictions amplified efforts to interdict illegal jammers, while customs and border agencies reported large spikes in interdicted devices destined for illicit use. The consequence for system designers is clear: passive reliance on GNSS without robust fallbacks is no longer acceptable for safety critical systems.

Commercial ecosystem and supply chain signals Cheap, capable jammers and readily accessible FPV platforms continue to blur the line between civilian and combat markets. Law enforcement and critical infrastructure operators face competing pressures: remove dangerous devices from circulation and preserve legitimate communications. Procurement and defensive planning must account for two facts. First, low cost jamming and spoofing tools scale quickly on the black market. Second, tactical adoption by state and non‑state actors is often driven more by logistics and doctrine than by technical purity. Supply chain transparency for RF components and vigilance against diverted civilian items are practical risk mitigations.

Practical recommendations for engineers and operators

  • Assume multi‑path attacks. Plan layered defenses that combine hardened receivers, alternative PNT sources, and physical or kinetic options for tethered threats.
  • Build ML with red teams. Validate models across noisy and adversarial conditions and instrument systems to flag model drift in the field.
  • Prioritize spectrum coordination early. If you design a system that needs mid‑band access, engage policy and spectrum managers during development cycles rather than at deployment.
  • Harden civilian critical systems. Implement GNSS failover strategies, deploy multi‑constellation receivers where feasible, and use timing backups for time‑sensitive networks.

Tactical takeaways The electromagnetic battlefield in H1 2025 is defined by pragmatic escalation rather than single breakthrough technologies. Adversaries will pair inexpensive quantity with selective sophistication, such as optical tethers or upgraded antenna arrays, to blunt traditional countermeasures. Defenders win by integrating sensors, automating classification and response where trust allows, and hardening critical civil and military systems through redundancy and policies that recognize the scarcity of usable spectrum.

Closing note Expect the second half of 2025 to be a year of consolidation where field lessons translate into procurement changes and doctrine updates. For hobbyists and industry alike, the pace of change argues for cautious experimentation, close attention to legal boundaries, and an operational focus on resilient design more than one‑off technical fixes.