The Global Positioning System and Military Jamming: The geographies of electronic warfare

Abstract

GPS supports infrastructure assets that are essential to the functioning of national and international banking operations, power grid, transportation, and communication systems, therefore its reliability and accuracy is critical. GPS boosts productivity around the world and has radically changed military operations. Despite the importance of GPS, the relative weakness of GPS signals are vulnerable to interference. This weakness provides a range of opportunities for criminals, terrorists and state actors using GPS jamming devices. Different types of jammers can cause varying degrees of interference, but the use of powerful military jammers are becoming more prevalent. This article provides an overview of the emergence, development, and scale of the GPS jamming phenomena. It argues, overall, that the use of jamming technologies creates new geographies of conflict when we think about the location and proximity of critical infrastructure. It identifies themes related to the impact of jamming to better understand present and possible geographical and geopolitical implications. It concludes that as GPS jamming is not confined to conflict zones. Interference is possible in a variety of geographical areas.