The Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) represents a pivotal advancement in airborne electronic warfare for the US Navy’s EA-18G Growler aircraft.
Whether one wants to admit it or not, there is a global arms race underway. Not since the heady days of the Cold War has the world seen such feverish attempts to create weapons that overrun the existing capabilities of great powers, such as the United States, or the concomitant attempts to create new defenses against these new attack capabilities.
One area that US rivals are proving to be a real challenge is in the anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) domain. Specifically designed to stunt US military power projection capabilities, the Americans and their allies have struggled to keep apace with these staggering developments.
What to Know About the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ)
The Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) represents a pivotal advancement in airborne electronic warfare for the US Navy’s EA-18G Growler aircraft. As tensions rise in the Indo-Pacific, particularly with China’s growing anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities, the NGJ equips American forces to dominate contested battlespaces.
America’s EA-18G Growler is derived from the Navy’s ubiquitous F/A-18 Super Hornet platform. It serves as the US military’s primary electronic attack aircraft. This plane specializes in suppressing enemy air defenses (SEAD) through jamming, deception, and electronic attacks. The legacy AN/ALQ-99 jamming pods, while effective in previous conflicts, struggle against modern, agile threats such as advanced radars and integrated air defense systems.
Enter the NGJ, a modular system designed to replace the ALQ-99 and provide superior electronic warfare capabilities.
Developed under the Navy’s Airborne Electronic Attack program, NGJ is divided into three increments: Mid-Band (NGJ-MB), Low-Band (NGJ-LB), and High-Band (NGJ-HB). The NGJ-MB, built by Raytheon, achieved Initial Operational Capability in January of this year, marking a milestone in its deployment. This pod covers mid-frequency bands critical for jamming enemy communications and radars.
Key features include active electronically scanned arrays (AESA) for precise, high-power beam steering, an all-digital backend for rapid signal processing, and gallium nitride (GaN) amplifiers that deliver significantly greater jamming power than predecessors. The system uses a ram air turbine for independent power generation, ensuring reliability during extended missions.
How the NGJ Jammer Works
Integration with the EA-18G Growler enhances the jammer’s standoff capabilities. Mounted externally on the aircraft’s underwing pylons, the NGJ allows the Growler to perform selective, reactive, and preemptive jamming while maintaining full-spectrum electronic attack. This means the aircraft can disrupt multiple threats simultaneously without compromising its own sensors or communications. Open systems architecture facilitates future upgrades, ensuring adaptability to evolving adversaries. In operational terms, the NGJ extends the Growler’s effective range, enabling it to blind enemy radars from safer distances and protect carrier strike groups or joint forces.
China’s A2/AD strategy poses a formidable challenge in contested battlespaces. A2/AD integrates long-range missiles (such as DF-21D “carrier killers”), advanced surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), like the HQ-9, submarines, sensors networks, hypersonic weapons, and sophisticated drones to stymie the freedom of movement for US forces in regions, like the South China Sea or near Taiwan.
In other words, China’s entire A2/AD strategy is one of denial. By denying the Americans their ability to reliably project power in regions that China covets, such as Taiwan and the South China Sea, Beijing believes its numerically superior forces will have a better chance of achieving their grand objectives.
The NGJ fundamentally alters this dynamic by degrading China’s otherwise robust A2/AD effectiveness. In a contested environment, US Navy Growlers could conceivably be equipped with NGJ systems and jam Chinese military radars and communications, creating “electronic bubbles” that shield US aircraft and ships from detection and targeting.
In the event of a Taiwan Strait crisis, NGJ-equipped Growlers could conceivably disrupt Chinese IADS, allowing F-35 stealth fighters or naval vessels to penetrate defended airspace without immediate retaliation.
Its agile frequency hopping counters adaptive threats, while higher power output overwhelms enemy sensors, forcing them into degraded modes or even shutdowns. This not only preserves (at least in theory) US assets but enables further offensive operations, such as precision strikes on A2/AD nodes, like missile launchers or command centers.
The NGJ Could Be a Strategic Enabler for America
At the strategic level, the NGJ bolsters multi-domain operations, integrating with other US capabilities like hypersonic weapons and unmanned systems to “disintegrate” A2/AD zones. By denying China the ability to contest air and sea domains, the NGJ could bolster America’s offensive capabilities and complicate the ability of Chinese forces to effectively contest air and sea domains.
Of course, complications to the NGJ remain. Its effectiveness relies entirely on the EA-18G Growler’s ability to survive in a degraded environment. The Growler, while indeed one of the most technically impressive warplanes in the Navy’s arsenal, is a relatively old bird. In fact, the Navy is slowly phasing these planes out of their fleet. China is aware of the Growler and its primary role in US Naval air operations, and it continues advancing counter-EW technologies in response. Ongoing developments in NGJ-LB and NGJ-HB will further expand coverage against low-frequency radars and emerging threats, too.
The Next Generation Jammer elevates the EA-18G Growler from a tactical asset to a strategic enabler in contested battlespaces. Against Chinese A2/AD, it provides the electronic edge needed for US forces to operate effectively, potentially averting or winning a high-stakes conflict.
As geopolitical frictions intensify, investments in NGJ underscore the importance of electronic warfare in modern deterrence. Whether this is simply an insufficient method of countering China’s robust A2/AD capabilities remains to be seen. But it is a move in the right direction. After years of dithering and ignoring the rapidly expanding Chinese A2/AD threat, the Navy is finally getting serious about overcoming that challenge. One must hope that it is not too little, too late.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert is a senior national security editor at The National Interest. Recently, Weichert became the host of The National Security Hour on America Outloud News and iHeartRadio, where he discusses national security policy every Wednesday at 8pm Eastern. He is also a contributor at Popular Mechanics and has consulted regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including The Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, The Asia Times, and others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
