long-standing concerns about the capability of GPS

In Ukraine and the Middle East, smart weapons are degraded or neutralized. Drones and missiles are deflected or turned back on attackers.

In the Baltic, South China Sea and elsewhere, denial and manipulation of satellite navigation signals has become a daily part of great power competition. These stark demonstrations of vulnerabilities have highlighted long-standing concerns about the capability of GPS and other American positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) capabilities.

Recently, security and navigation experts published two documents that offer strong critiques of the low priority and attention senior leadership has given to PNT issues over the last 20 years.

One is a four-page memo sent July 19 to the Deputy Secretaries of Defense and Transportation from retired Admiral Thad Allen, chair of the President’s National Space-based PNT Advisory Board.

America’s continued over-reliance on GPS

In the memo, Allen warned “America’s continued over-reliance on GPS for PNT makes critical infrastructure and applications vulnerable to a variety of well documented accidental, natural, and malicious threats.”

He added that the board’s “conclusion is that PNT in general and GPS in particular have not been accorded their rightful prominence in the national policy agenda.”

“Simply put, the Board believes that the 20-year-old framework for GPS governance and the current policy statements establish neither the priority that the system deserves nor sufficiently clear accountability for its performance.”

The other document is a 19-page paper published July 18 by the National Security Space Association (NSSA), titled “America’s Asymmetric Vulnerability to Navigation Warfare: Leadership and Strategic Direction Needed to Mitigate Significant Threats.” Two of the key findings in this document, sponsored by the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, are that the U.S. faces a “long-standing lack of progress on issues important to U.S. national, homeland, and economic security,” and that “Focused leadership, properly empowered and resourced, is essential to the national PNT strategy’s success.”

Allen’s memo was nominally a report of the Advisory Board’s most recent meeting in Colorado Springs this April. As part of that report, the board’s nine recommendations from Jan. 2023 were reaffirmed, and three more were forwarded.

The governance structure is not working

The overwhelming majority of Allen’s message dealt with GPS, the vulnerability of America’s PNT, the importance of PNT to the nation’s safety and security, and the failure of the government to do the things it said it should and would do to protect it. Ultimately, Allen argued that the leadership and governance structure established by presidential directive in 2004 and reaffirmed in 2021 has not been working.

In fact, PNT has been overlooked by the federal government’s assessment of its own critical infrastructure, Allen argued. All critical infrastructure sectors use, and almost all depend upon GPS. Yet regarding the National Security Memorandum on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience published in April, Allen wrote “We were surprised to discover that GPS is nowhere mentioned in that important document.”

National PNT capability is lacking

Allen also emphasized that the real issue is not just about GPS, but overall national PNT capability, which now lags behind that of China.

Reinforcing this message, the memo included the following table to compare U.S. versus Chinese national PNT systems. Ultimately, it shows that China has deployed a far more comprehensive and resilient PNT system compared to the U.S.’s continued over-reliance on GPS.

Based on these disparities, Allen wrote that “The Board believes it is time to take a fresh look at our approach to PNT governance and establish a clear strategy for re-establishing an unquestioned position of leadership for the U.S. To be successful, such a strategy requires a governance structure characterized by clearer authority and accountability. Ideally, the administration should propose legislation to Congress that would support this goal with a clear mandate (authorization) and resources (appropriations) adequate to the task.”

The NSSA paper also expressed very similar concerns about GPS vulnerability — and about America being far behind in PNT resilience and “navigation warfare.” It also called for action by both the administration and Congress.

The paper cited numerous presidential and congressional mandates to address PNT going back to President Clinton. Yet, the nation still has a number of “shortfalls” in capability, many of which are listed in the Federal Radionavigation Plan, including:

• a lack of ability to withstand spoofing, jamming and natural and unintentional interference;
• the inability to notify users when signals are compromised;
• limited protection from cyber threats;
• the inability to detect and locate of interference sources; and
• the lack of alternatives when GPS is compromised or not available.

It went on to say that “American society has been transformed by the availability of GPS” and “The harm to the U.S. economy that would result if GPS services were lost is incalculable.”

At the same time, threats and actual disruptions to GPS services around the world have been greatly increasing. The report specifically mentioned recent adversarial actions by China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Navwar and “GPS Blackmail”

This should be of great concern to the nation, according to NSSA. America is so dependent on GPS that “merely the threat of disrupting GPS services might be enough to impact U.S. national security and foreign policy.”

Going further, the paper suggests that the November 2021 Russian destruction of one of its satellites with a ground-based missile and subsequent threat to destroy all GPS satellites if NATO crossed its “red line” may already have subjected the U.S. to “GPS blackmail.”

“Despite 90,000 Russian troops massing along the border with Ukraine, U.S. officials decided against sending certain military equipment to Ukraine to avoid provoking Russia,” the paper reads.

The consequence of all of this, the paper says, is that “…the system’s unmitigated vulnerabilities could result in potentially profound domestic and international implications.”

Those implications, it continues, could include “cascading effects which unravel America’s socioeconomic fabric.”

These include loss of international prestige; greatly reduced information and communications flow from space and on the ground; adverse socio-economic impacts because of psychological blows to the populace and physical harm to infrastructure; and harm to America’s homeland and national defense.

To remedy this, the NSSA report says, “The United States must rapidly develop and implement a comprehensive, whole of nation, strategy to redress its asymmetric vulnerability to Navwar [navigation warfare] and restore U.S. leadership in space-based and terrestrial PNT.”

Both the administration and Congress must be involved in this effort, says the NSSA, to ensure American leadership is properly equipped and focused on the challenge ahead.

Dana A. Goward is President of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation. He is a retired Coast Guard helicopter pilot and formerly served as the maritime navigation authority for the United States. He has been a member of the President’s National Space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board since 2015.