Electronic Warfare Units Cannot Train Because FCC Rules Prohibit Jamming on US Soil

U.S. military electronic warfare (EW) units are prohibited from transmitting jamming signals on American soil because the Federal Communications Commission regulates all electromagnetic spectrum usage domestically, including on military installations. The Communications Act of 1934 makes it illegal to willfully interfere with licensed radio communications. While narrow exemptions exist for specific test ranges like White Sands, the vast majority of Army posts, where EW units are based and train daily, cannot conduct live jamming exercises. This means that EW soldiers and officers deploy to combat having never actually jammed an enemy signal in a realistic training environment. They study theory, run simulations on laptops, and practice antenna placement, but they have never experienced the feedback loop of detecting a signal, targeting it, jamming it, and assessing the effect. It is the equivalent of training infantry soldiers who have never fired a live round. An Army EW officer at the National Training Center described it as showing up to a gunfight having only played laser tag. The consequence is that when EW capabilities are most needed, against near-peer adversaries with sophisticated communications and radar systems, U.S. EW operators lack the muscle memory and practical experience to employ their systems effectively. During exercises at JMRC in Germany, where some jamming is permitted under host-nation agreements, U.S. EW units consistently underperform because operators are encountering live electromagnetic effects for the first time. Mistakes in the training environment are learning opportunities; mistakes in combat mean the enemy's communications stay up and their fires remain accurate. This problem persists because the FCC's statutory authority over spectrum is absolute within U.S. borders, and the political cost of changing the law is perceived as higher than the military readiness risk. Every time DoD has proposed expanded jamming authorities on military ranges, commercial spectrum users, broadcasters, and cellular carriers lobby against it, fearing interference with their signals. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which manages federal spectrum, has been unable to broker a compromise. The root cause is that spectrum governance in the United States was designed for a peacetime commercial economy, not for wartime military readiness. The 1934 Act predates electronic warfare as a concept. There is no legal framework that balances commercial spectrum protection with the military's need to train on the electromagnetic capabilities it will use in combat. Other nations, notably Russia and China, train their EW forces extensively in realistic jamming environments on their own territory, creating a readiness gap that widens every year.