March 07, 2022
Russian threats a reminder of the need to protect GPS
Video and images of Russia’s illegitimate attempt to deny Ukrainian sovereignty have shocked the world – especially the gruesome attacks in civilian urban areas. But some of the war’s most strategic impacts may well occur in less physically observable domains: space and cyberspace.
The United States and its allies remain vulnerable to spoofing, denial and attack. While Russia’s ground forces may not have delivered the swift stroke Putin expected, its cyber capabilities could fare far better in a future fight and the West needs to be ready.
As we continue to observe Russia escalate this conflict, we must be prepared to understand the threats to our Global Positioning System capabilities, actively defend the GPS system, and work with partners and allies to creatively architect a way to deny hostile actors like Russia the benefits of jamming GPS.
While Russia’s ground forces may not have delivered the swift stroke Putin expected, its cyber capabilities could fare far better in a future fight and the West needs to be ready.
Russia has long identified U.S. reliance on space-based positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) as an asymmetric vulnerability to be denied early in any conflict with the West.Moscow assesses that the U.S. and its allies are reliant on GPS to conduct effective military operations while Russia can continue to rely on its own space-based PNT system, GLONASS, to provide them support. Recently, HawkEye360, a U.S.-based company which uses satellites to collect radio-frequency signals and provides data analytics services, reported extensive GPS interference activity over Ukraine.
Read the full article from Space News.
More from CNAS
-
How to Revamp Chinese Students’ American Education
The PRC today operates the largest and most sophisticated propaganda apparatus in human history....
By Bill Drexel & Grace Gao
-
AI’s impact on elections is being overblown
Far from being dominated by AI-enabled catastrophes, this election “super year” at that point was pretty much like every other election year....
By Keegan McBride, Felix M. Simon & Sacha Altay
-
Regulating Artificial Intelligence Must Not Undermine NIST’s Integrity
A strong NIST will continue to help build standards that are adopted globally and lay the foundation for further American AI innovation and dissemination....
By Keegan McBride
-
AI and the Evolution of Biological National Security Risks
Executive Summary Not long after COVID-19 gave the world a glimpse of the catastrophic potential of biological events, experts began warning that rapid advancements in artific...
By Bill Drexel & Caleb Withers