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The author of the below article is President of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation.
US dangerously behind, PNT leadership needed
Describing a dangerous “asymmetric vulnerability to navigation warfare” a recent paper from the National Security Space Association (NSSA) calls for a wide variety of actions to mitigate the threat. The most important, “Focused leadership, properly empowered and resourced…”
The nineteen-page paper, in some ways, reads like a primer on GPS and positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), providing background and context for policymakers unfamiliar with the technology and the United States’ broad dependence upon it.
“Long-standing lack of progress on issues important to U.S. national, homeland, and economic security.”
The lack of focused leadership, according to the paper, is evidenced by long-standing failures to follow through on a variety of mandates from senior leadership over the course of the last 20 years. Quoting from the Federal Radio Navigation Plan, it cites persistent shortfalls in national capability as including:
- Assured, real-time PNT in physically impeded environments (e.g., indoors, urban canyons, underground facilities).
- Sufficient accuracy and integrity in electromagnetically impeded environments — including operations during spoofing, jamming, and natural and unintentional interference.
- Higher accuracy with high integrity; timely notification/alarming when PNT performance is degraded or misleading, especially for safety-of-life applications or to avoid collateral damage.
- Ensuring PNT services, including supporting information technology (IT) infrastructure and supply chain are protected from cyber threats
- Ability to accurately locate sources of intentional and unintentional interference in a timely manner.
- Insufficient resilience and survivability when GPS services are unavailable or untrusted.
“American society has been transformed by the availability of GPS.”
The paper describes four decades of GPS being incorporated into virtually every technology and used by every critical infrastructure. It calls the harm to society should it be lost “incalculable.” It also notes that the operation of many space systems that support critical infrastructure and/or critical national applications is itself dependent upon GPS for proper operation.
The military utility and advantages brought by GPS are also discussed. These include:
- Its role as the lynchpin for precision strike.
- Enabling “… the maneuver, synchronization, and massing of effects from dispersed forces.”
- PNT to achieve information and decision superiority over an adversary.
“Merely the threat of disrupting GPS services might be enough to impact U.S. national security and foreign policy.”
The paper says recent actions by and ongoing threats from adversaries of the United States are a critical concern.
Electronic warfare (EW) and cyber attacks by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea demonstrate the ease and effectiveness of such vectors, as well as the seriousness of the threat.
As one example, Russia’s impending launch of a nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapon has the potential to both destroy or damage GPS satellites nearby and interfere with radio communications. NSSA recently published a paper on the Russian nuclear ASAT threat.
A potentially even more serious threat would be if Russia should deploy a nuclear-powered directed energy or electronic warfare weapon. Such a device would be “reusable” and could threaten an even larger number of space platforms or, in the case of an EW device, both space-based and terrestrial receivers.
“GPS blackmail”
The paper posits that the United States’ overdependence on GPS is so great that it could be subject to “GPS blackmail.” It suggests that this may already have occurred.
Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it destroyed a defunct satellite with a ground-based missile, creating thousands of pieces of debris. Shortly thereafter, state-sponsored TV announced that Russia would destroy all 32 GPS satellites if NATO “crossed its red line.” Despite 90,000 Russian troops massing along the border, “U.S. officials decided against sending certain military equipment to Ukraine to avoid provoking Russia.”
“…could have cascading effects which unravel America’s socioeconomic fabric…”
NSSA warns that U.S. “critical infrastructures, national essential functions, and military forces could be at grave risk.” Among the impacts of a major GPS disruption, it counts:
- Loss of U.S. political prestige and influence.
- Degradation of the informational element of national power (IT and telecommunications).
- Severe socioeconomic implications. “given the integration of GPS into critical infrastructures and their interdependencies, lengthy disruption just of the power grid, for example, could have cascading effects which [would] unravel America’s socioeconomic fabric…”
- Harm to national and homeland defense. The ability to perform essential national Leadership is needed.
While the paper makes several specific recommendations for actions by various departments, it also identifies national-level leadership as key:
“The United States must rapidly develop and implement a comprehensive, whole of nation, strategy to redress its asymmetric vulnerability to Navwar and restore U.S. leadership in space-based and terrestrial PNT. … Focused leadership, properly empowered and resourced, is essential to the national PNT strategy’s success.”
The NSSA paper “America’s Asymmetric Vulnerability to Navigation Warfare: Leadership and Strategic Direction Needed to Mitigate Significant Threats” was sponsored by the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation and can be accessed here.
