The GPS Dilemma: Balancing Military Risks and Economic Benefits

Balancing Military Risks and Economic Benefits w h e n the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)developed its idea for a satellite-based navigation network known as the global positioning system (GPS) in 1973, it could not have known the extent to which its creation would revolutionize navigation. Using GPS, both military and civilian users can now obtain highly accurate position, velocity, and time informationcheaply and simply.The availabilityof GPS provides tremendous benefits to an unlimited number of users throughout the world, includingincreased safety and significantmonetary savings.Despite these many benefits, there is a risk associated with the spread of GPS equipment : any military force can use GPS to improve its navigation and guidance capabilities.Thus, the rapid proliferation of GPS equipment around the world leads to a dilemma for U.S. policymakers: growing civilian access to GPS leads to larger economic benefits, but it also increases the risk that some nation or terrorist group will use GPS in attacks against U.S. assets.’ In this article, I examine the potential benefits and risks associated with the growing use of GPS throughout the world. I begin by providing some backgrdund on GPS and related technologies. I then analyze the benefits gained both by users and by the U.S. economy due to growing GPS utilization around Irving Lachow is a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California The author thanks Richard Falkenrath, Gerald Frost, and Eric Larson for their comments and suggestions. The views expressed herein are solely those of the author; they do not represent the opinions of either the RAND Corporation or its sponsors. 1. This dilemma is receiving a great deal of attention. SeeJoint Department of Defense (DoD)/Department of Transportation (DOT)Task Force, The Global Positioning System: Management and Operation of a Dual Use System (Washington,D.C.: DoD/DoT, December 1993);David A. Turner and Marcia S. Smith, GPS: Satellite Navigation and Positioning and the DoD’s Navstar Global Positioning System (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 1994); U.S. Congress, Committee on Armed Servicesof the United States Senate, National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2994 (Washington,D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office [U.S. GPO], 1993), p. 63; and U.S. Congress, Senate, Senator Exon of Nebraska speaking on ”The Future of the Global Positioning System,” Congressional Record, Vol. 139, No. 58, April 30, 1993, pp. 5274-5276. Two additional studies are currently under way: Congress has asked the National Academy of PublicAdministration (NAPA) and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to examine a variety of GPS issues including management, international acceptance,technical specifications,and military risks. RANDSCritical Technologies Institute (CTI) has been asked by the Office of Science and Technology Policy to perform a similar study. International Security, Vol 20, No 1(Summer 1995),pp 12G148 0 1995by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 126 The GPS Dilemma I 127 the world. In the next section, I examine the risks associated with GPS use by hostile military forces, specifically land use, use with airborne platforms (including missiles), and use for joint operations. I conclude by exploring U.S. policy options for maximizing the benefits due to the sale of GPS equipment while minimizing military risks. Background TheGPSstory beginswith TRANSIT, the first U.S. space-basedradionavigation satellite system. TRANSIT was used with great success by the Navy’s Polaris submarine fleet in the 1960s. Because of TRANSIT’S success, both the Navy and Air Force began to design follow-on systems. However, neither system satisfied the Department of Defense’s requirementsfor an all-servicenavigation system. The GPS Joint Program Office (JPO)was established soon thereafter and manned with representatives from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Defense Mapping Agency. The Air Force was given the primary responsibility of developing, testing, and deploying whatever system the JPO created. The GPS concept was developed by this team. Although GPS was developed and paid for solely by the Department of Defense, it is now officially a dual-use system. Civilian use of GPS was an implicit considerationfrom its inception; however, the official declarationcame in 1983 when President Reagan-spurred by the Korean...