A recent article in the New York Times has far-reaching and ominous implications for the United States. It reports on findings from researchers at the University of Texas that Russian satellites have been purposely interfering with GPS signals across a broad swath of northern Europe, Greenland and Canada since 2019.
These interference events are evidence of an electronic weapon being covertly exercised. They have been sporadic, very short duration, slightly offset from the main GPS signal, and very difficult to detect. The same satellites have been interfering with Bei Dou, China’s satellite navigation system in a nearly identical way since 2020. This seems to remove any doubt as to the Russian system’s intent and purpose.
While similar events have not been observed in the US, the Russian satellites are able to reach anywhere on the globe. And Moscow has a history of interfering and threatening to interfere with GPS to further its own goals.
The most ominous example of this was in November 2021 as Russia was massing its troops along the border with Ukraine. In a demonstration akin to China’s anti-satellite test in 2007, Russia destroyed a defunct satellite with a ground-based missile, carelessly generating thousands of pieces of orbital debris to send a threatening message that foreign space systems are not safe. Several days later state-sponsored media made it explicit, threatening that Russia would shoot down all 32 GPS satellites if NATO got in its way in Ukraine.
