Understanding Navigation Warfare (NAVWAR)
By Tamir Eshel -Jun 14, 2024346
Navigation Warfare, or NAVWAR, represents a critical domain within the broader spectrum of Electronic Warfare (EW), focusing on the contest for dominance over positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) capabilities essential for military and civilian operations. It encompasses a range of offensive and defensive measures aimed at exploiting, deceiving, disrupting, or protecting satellite navigation systems—principally the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), which include the United States GPS, Russia’s GLONASS, Europe’s Galileo, and China’s BeiDou. These satellite constellations are used for commercial and military services and provide navigation services to users worldwide.
The Strategic Importance of GNSS
GNSS plays a pivotal role in the modern world, far beyond its military applications. It underpins critical infrastructure, from telecommunications and electricity grids to banking systems. In military use, GNSS is the backbone of precision-guided munitions, real-time troop and asset tracking, and synchronized operations across air, land, sea, space, and cyber domains. Thus, the accuracy and reliability of PNT data are not merely operational requirements but are fundamentally intertwined with national security and global stability.
Vulnerabilities and Threats
Despite its advantages, the reliance on GNSS introduces significant vulnerabilities. GNSS signals, being low-power radio waves transmitted from thousands of kilometers away in space, are inherently susceptible to intentional or accidental interference. NAVWAR exploits these vulnerabilities through:
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