January 17, 2009:  The U.S. Army is upgrading the career prospects of soldiers specializing in electronic warfare (EW). For officers, EW is now a more lucrative career field (more promotions and interesting assignments). Same deal for enlisted personnel. The army is buying a lot more EW equipment and setting up more training courses for the officers and troops who will use this stuff. A lot of this renewed enthusiasm for EW came with the development of jamming gear to defeat roadside bombs in Iraq. Also as part of that effort, the army developed new electronic eavesdropping tools, as well as all manner of new electronic gadgets (many of them still classified.) The effort to deal with IEDs (improvised explosive devices, like roadside bombs) brought the army billions of dollars a year in additional money. That led to so much new gear, and new battlefield opportunities, that the army is expanding its EW efforts, and number of EW specialists, permanently.