Trump May Be Marginalizing the Utility of Ukraine’s F-16s

There are countless ways in which Ukraine depends on military and intelligence support from the U.S. One important intervention is technical integration and upgrade support for the radar-jamming electronic-warfare modules on Kyiv’s fleet of F-16 fighter jets.

According to a recent report on the current state of the Ukraine war, Kyiv is assessing how its European-donated equipment can be used to compensate for the fact that information is no longer being supplied to Ukrainian air-force and air-defense units.

This new reality, combined with other recent moves by the Trump administration decision to cut off shipments of U.S. military assistance to Ukraine, is assessed as a “double-whammy” that will significantly undercut Ukraine’s ability to attack Russian targets. It will also cripple F-16s in their missions to defend against incoming Russian strikes—attacks that are increasing in quantity and severity.

The main system in question provides one of the most essential capabilities equipped on the F-16s in Ukraine’s inventory: the AN/ALQ-131 electronic countermeasures (ECM) pod. This pod is produced in multiple variants and is used on multiple U.S. military aircraft.

There are several variants of the pod. Which one is installed depends on the mission that the aircraft is designed for. Overall, it is meant to protect an aircraft against radar threats in several different bandwidths. It uses the traditional DRFM technology that has been the standard for modern ECM systems for decades.

Integrated Self-Protection Systems

Like most fighter aircraft, the F-16 relies on both passive and active means for survival in air combat. The active means are electronic warfare (EW) systems (the ALQ-131 in this case) that will parrot back radar signals from an enemy aircraft or air-defense radar. The passive means are countermeasures—either chaff or infrared-missile-diverting flares—that are ejected from dispensers mounted on the aircraft.

The ALQ-131 active protection provides an F-16 “with a pocket of air superiority for a moment’s time to achieve an objective that has strategic importance and impact,” in the words of a U.S. Air Force officer familiar with how the pod has been adapted for use on the Ukrainian F-16s.

The adaptation of this pod to the Danish, Norwegian, and Dutch aircraft provided to Kyiv was carried out by the 68th Electronic Warfare Squadron at Eglin Air Force base in Florida, in cooperation with specialists from these NATO nations.

Key to the pod’s ability to effectively protect the F-16 is to reprogram the pod based on information that is provided to the U.S. Air Force by the Ukrainians. Traditionally, that kind of information comes from foreign customers performing a “lessons learned” assessment from training exercises or intercepts in peacetime of an adversary aircraft in international airspace.

Withdrawing Critical Assistance

But in this active war against Russia, such data will come from recordings of enemy emissions, or signals from radars and EW systems that the F-16s have encountered in real combat. Those emissions are analyzed and added to the ALQ-131’s “threat library.” Updates of this kind keep the pod up to date, and their performance is one of the most essential aspects of intelligence cooperation.

This process is a kind of “cat and mouse” game, said a Ukrainian EW specialist who explained the effectiveness of the pod to 19FortyFive. “It means that as we update the pod, the Russians can come up with new radar modes or re-program their own emitters. We have to stay ahead of them in this process, but with intelligence cooperation cut off now, we are instead going to be behind, blind and hobbled.”

These EW engineers, along with other Ukraine organizations analyzing the value of this kind of cooperation with the U.S., have lamented the fact that up to this point the F-16s have been able to operate like a “flying air defense” of stand-off jammers. This critical asset will no longer enjoy the support of the U.S. it once had, with some severe consequences for the future of the F-16s in Ukraine’s service.

About the Author: 

Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.