U.S. reliance on GPS draws security scrutiny as signal interference grows

A quarter-century after the Sept. 11 attacks shifted U.S. national security attention toward aviation security, intelligence and counterterrorism, another vulnerability is drawing increased concern: the country’s dependence on satellite-based positioning.

GPS and other global navigation satellite systems now support a wide range of civilian and military activity. They help trucks and other vehicles move, guide planting and harvesting in agriculture, assist utilities restoring power after disasters, direct emergency responders and enable military forces to maneuver, coordinate and sustain operations.

That dependence has developed alongside confidence in GPS reliability. Recent conflicts, however, have shown that interference, spoofing and electronic warfare against positioning systems are recurring tools in modern warfare. Government warnings say adversaries continue to expand capabilities to jam, spoof or disrupt satellite-based navigation.

The U.S. Space Force has identified China as actively developing and fielding counterspace capabilities intended to weaken U.S. space-enabled services. Those efforts include anti-satellite weapons, electronic warfare systems and technologies designed to interfere with satellite operations.

Researchers also reported in June that several brief, widespread GNSS interference events across Europe were connected to transmissions from Russian satellites. They identified at least three incidents, with disruptions lasting up to 10 seconds.

The concern extends beyond the satellites themselves. Satellite positioning depends on signals sent from space to receivers used by vehicles, equipment and people on the ground. If those signals are blocked or manipulated, systems that rely on them can face uncertainty about location and movement.

U.S. defense planners have made operating without reliable positioning a priority in contested logistics, reflecting the need to sustain military operations when normal navigation support is degraded or unavailable. The issue has become more urgent as electronic warfare and GPS interference appear repeatedly in recent conflicts.

A major disruption to positioning services would not bring all traffic to a standstill or close all highways. But it could create uncertainty across transportation, emergency response, fuel distribution, logistics and commerce. The effects could reach military mobility and the broader economy even if roads, buildings and other infrastructure were not physically damaged.

The COVID-19 pandemic offered a recent example of how uncertainty involving essential goods can affect public behavior and reveal supply chain vulnerabilities. A positioning disruption would pose a different challenge: degrading the systems that help move goods, coordinate responses and restore services.

The economic risk is substantial. A study commissioned by the National Institute of Standards and Technology estimated that a nationwide loss of GPS service would cost the U.S. economy about $1 billion per day in direct economic impacts. Broader effects on emergency response, transportation, logistics and public confidence would be more difficult to measure.

The issue also intersects with major U.S. investments in autonomous systems, robotic logistics, artificial intelligence-enabled command and control and other next-generation military technologies. Whether operated by service members or running independently, those systems must know their location and remain able to complete missions.

As a result, resilience around satellite-based positioning has become a national security and economic readiness issue. The Sept. 11 attacks led the U.S. to prepare heavily against a known model of attack. Current warnings point to a different risk: disruption of the everyday systems that allow transportation, emergency response, agriculture, utilities, commerce and military operations to function.