Exclusive: Britney Spears tunes jam Nato aircraft during warfighting scenarios
Personnel taking part in Nato's largest air exercise of the year faced having their aircraft jammed with pop music, including songs by Britney Spears.
Experts in electronic warfare who were tasked with playing the enemy in a range of warfighting scenarios played tracks by Britney Spears, Seven Nation Army, as well as techno music.
It was during Exercise Ramstein Flag, which took place in the Netherlands and involved more than 90 aircraft from across the alliance.
One of the aircraft taking part was a business jet that was transformed into an electronic warfare aircraft owned by a company whose job it is to test personnel in a range of different ways during training exercises like these.
They had a very specific playlist ready for the personnel involved.
Alastair Balmain, head of communications at Draken, said: "We have been known to break into their comms network with the occasional popular music choice.
"We have been supplying Britney Spears to the French, techno to the Dutch and Seven Nation Army to the Germans.
"The purpose is to degrade the environment so they can experience what it's like to have your comms jammed so when it happens for real, they are familiar with the concept."
Lieutenant Colonel Gregory Schroeder, Commander 495th Fighter Squadron, told BFBS Forces News: "I may have heard a little bit of pop music over the course of the last week, yes."
Interfering with communications is a normal part of training scenarios like these.
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Persson, Detachment Commander, Swedish Detachment, said: "There is jamming as an integral part of the exercise, which is also something you would meet in a real-life scenario... it's quite common you play music to jam the frequencies."
Jamming aircraft or general radio broadcasts on the ground is nothing new, it's been going on for decades, especially during the Cold War.
Militaries are always working on how they can defend themselves against electronic warfare and use it effectively.
In 2024, an RAF plane carrying the then-Defence Secretary Grant Shapps had its GPS signal jammed while flying close to Russian territory.
Back in 2014, there was a report in Ukraine claiming that Russia had been broadcasting propaganda to local people over loudspeakers and that Ukrainian troops responded by blasting back the music of American pop singer Cher.
Earlier this year, there were reports that they even used other sound effects to try and lure Russian troops out of hiding.
They were playing recordings of cats meowing to draw them out.
Justin Bieber's music has been used on loop to break down detainees in Guantánamo Bay.
Tunes from Barney the Dinosaur, Sesame Street and Metallica were used on prisoners held in Iraq during the Second Gulf War by the US's Psychological Operations Company (Psy Ops), who said the aim was to break a prisoner's resistance through sleep deprivation and playing music that was culturally offensive to them.
On 25 December 1989, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega sought refuge in the Vatican's embassy in Panama.
General "Mad Max" Thurman ordered construction of a "musical barrier" around the embassy, which saw constant barrages of sound played from the speakers of US Army Humvees.
He was blasted with tunes by Guns N' Roses and Twisted Sister before surrendering.
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