Artist's conception of a GPS III satellite in orbit

Artist's conception of a GPS III satellite in orbit U.S. Air Force

Time Warfare: Threats to GPS Aren’t Just About Navigation and Positioning

The U.S. military needs to get serious about assuring access to precision timing.

When people talk about the U.S. military’s dependence on positioning, navigation, and timing, or PNT, information, they’re usually thinking about GPS — more formally, the NAVSTAR Global Positioning System. And these days, they’re often concerned about the ways adversaries can disrupt GPS signals and thereby deny U.S. forces the positioning and navigation information that enables the “American Way of War.” But there’s another aspect of PNT that is getting short shrift: the T, for timing.

But did you realize that GPS actually only provides timing information? The positioning and navigation information that we associate with GPS is simply derived from these timing signals by receiver devices, and far more users depend on this Air Force maintained constellation for timing information alone.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, 11 of the 16 critical industries identified in Presidential Policy Directive 21 rely on precision timing. In the civilian world, these uses include communications, cellular phones, power distribution, finance, and information technology. Military capabilities that depend on precision timing include sensing, sensor fusion, datalinks, secure communications, electronic warfare, network operations, and command and control. 

Yet the U.S. military organization responsible for PNT superiority is the Joint Navigation Warfare Center. The focus of much of the military’s training for contested, degraded, and operationally limited environments has been on identifying and mitigating the effects of GPS denial on positioning and navigation.

If timing is so essential, what can the U.S. military do to increase its time resilience? First, realize that a serious approach to assuring access to precision timing will require more than the current defensive efforts. Indeed, the U.S. military should embrace the concept of time warfare in the way it has adopted navigation warfare.

This means finding new and comprehensive ways to identify threats to U.S. timing systems, not just via electronic attack, but though the other warfighting domains as well. It means crafting defense time infrastructure and network operations to design, create, maintain, and improve friendly timing sources and timing distribution, with a focus on the broad uses of precision timing. And it means planning for offensive time operations that can enable U.S. military superiority across services and military functions.

Second, the Defense Department should elevate timing, long regarded as “the little t” in PNT, by disaggregating it from positioning and navigation, allowing precise-time-and-time-interval efforts to emerge from the shadows in policy, planning, and doctrine. The three elements of PN are not inextricably linked; there are many ways of measuring and distributing timing that do not rely on GPS or navigation systems at all. Examples include DARPA’s Chip-Scale Atomic Clock and palm-sized Atomic Clock with Enhanced Stability.

Related: Army Testing Robo-Parachutes That Don’t Need GPS

Related: DHS: Drug Traffickers Are Spoofing Border Drones

Related: Four DARPA Projects That Could Be Bigger Than The Internet

Third, the U.S. military needs to choose an organization to be responsible for the operational aspects of time warfare. If this is to be the Joint Navigation Warfare Center, it should be renamed the Joint Time Warfare Center to reflect a more holistic PNT mission. It should also be moved out of U.S. Strategic Command’s Joint Functional Component Command for Space to deemphasize the focus on space-based systems like GPS for PNT, and handed to STRATCOM/J3 to emphasize the operational warfighting aspects of time warfare.

Few technologies have as broad an impact on both national security and Americans’ daily lives as precision timing, and so threats to this technology must be given appropriate priority. Yet even as the Defense Department works on new systems to spread the risk, it must also think more broadly about timing’s place in warfare. Without deliberate, comprehensive, coherent, and comprehensive guidance and policy now, the Defense Department risks replacing one well-functioning but vulnerable timing component — GPS — with dozens of disparate, non-interoperable, and possibly still vulnerable timing systems.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Air Force, Defense Department, or the U.S. government.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.