The Human Cost of Outdated GPS

Nearly every night during my 2010 deployment to Afghanistan, we gathered on the flight line for a fallen soldier ceremony. We stood together to honor American and NATO service members who had given their lives. Afterward, I would lie awake thinking about the technology we relied on, the tools warfighters still needed, and how much faster those tools needed to reach the people doing the job. The vulnerabilities that kept me awake then still exist. The good news is that new technologies – particularly those related to positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) – already exist that can give our forces the reliable backup they require.

On the front lines, I watched warfighters make do with whatever tools they had. I also saw how quickly the loss or degradation of GPS could turn a planned operation into something far more dangerous. The obstacles to delivering the capability warfighters need were rarely a lack of talent or hard work. The real problems were structural: policies written for an older threat environment, funding that favored slow, incremental progress, acquisition processes built for multi-decade programs instead of rapid delivery, and shifting political priorities. Time and again, the system itself slowed down better capability.

These problems are not theoretical. The Next Generation Operational Control System was supposed to modernize how we command and control the GPS constellation. In a decade and a half it never delivered, cost roughly $6 billion, and was cancelled in 2026. While secure military GPS signals have been broadcasting for years, the equipment needed to use them at scale still lags. The result is a persistent gap between what the technology can offer and what warfighters can use when the signal environment becomes contested.

That gap carries a real human cost. GPS signals travel more than 20,000 kilometers. By the time they reach a receiver, they are extremely weak—like trying to see a 50-watt lightbulb from that distance. Incremental upgrades have helped, but the basic design still belongs to an earlier era. When adversaries jam or spoof those signals, as they routinely do in Ukraine, Iran, and elsewhere, precision weapons lose accuracy, drones become less reliable, and units operating in denied environments face higher risk. The ceremonies on the flight line were a reminder of lives already lost. The larger question is how many more we are willing to accept by continuing to field capability at the speed of the last generation of threats rather than the current one.

It was not always this way. After a Korean Air Lines flight strayed into Soviet airspace and was shot down in 1983, the United States recognized that a reliable, globally available navigation system could help prevent similar tragedies. Civilians were given access a few years later. In 2000, Selective Availability was turned off and accuracy improved dramatically for users around the world. Those decisions reshaped global navigation and commerce. They also left the world dependent on signals that were never designed for today’s jamming and spoofing threats.

The people I served with wanted to close that gap. They understood that the foundation GPS built is extraordinary and must be preserved. What is needed now are additional sources of assurance—stronger signals, more diversity in geometry and frequency, and the ability to deliver usable capability in years rather than decades. Commercial innovation in launch, satellite production, and software-defined systems has already produced complementary PNT solutions that can harden military and civilian users against the contested environments we face today. These systems are not theoretical. They exist, they can be fielded far faster than traditional programs, and they can end the complete dependence on a single constellation whose modernization has repeatedly proven slower than the threat.

I still think about those nights on the flight line. I think about the young men and women sent to execute missions with whatever capability could reach them. The engineers and public servants I worked beside wanted to move faster, but they were held back by a system built for another time. 

The solutions exist today. What remains is the decision to field them with the urgency the threat demands. Policymakers and military leaders must treat new PNT technologies as an urgent requirement, not another multi-decade science project. Closing the gap between what is needed and what is fielded is no longer optional. It is the difference between the next fallen-soldier ceremony and the one that never has to happen.

Justin Deifel is vice president of government programs at Xona and a retired U.S. Space Force colonel. He previously led the service’s Military Communications and Positioning, Navigation and Timing Futures Branch.