Small Wars Journal

Feeling the HEAT

Tue, 01/26/2010 - 10:42am
The HEAT being in this case High-End Asymmetric Threats.

Two examples of HEAT in recent news.

First, writing in his column at Foreign Policy, Josh Rogin tabulated the ten worst Chinese cyber attacks on the United States, at least the ten worst known to the public. Making the list were attacks that penetrated and stole vast amounts of data from U.S. military laboratories, the State Department, NASA, the Naval War College, and the Joint Strike Fighter division of Lockheed Martin. Rogin specifically implicates the Chinese government in these attacks.

Today's New York Times featured an article on a cyber war game recently conducted by the U.S. government. Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn led the exercise with the top unified commanders participating. According to the article, the exercise resulted in confusion and paralysis among the decision makers.

Another high-end asymmetric worry is the global positioning satellite network. Last week, General Norton Schwartz, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, the service responsible for operating the GPS system, advised the U.S. military to reduce its reliance on GPS. He said the system remains vulnerable and war planners and commanders should not expect it to function during a war. Schwartz's warnings come after many decades of proliferation of GPS receivers across the military, which now seem present on every airplane, ship, boat, vehicle, soldier, missile, and bomb.

To indicate to potential adversaries that they do not possess leverage over U.S. military operations in this regard, perhaps U.S. Joint Forces Command planners should organize large joint "no GPS" training exercises and invite outsiders to observe. But only after they are sure U.S. military forces could pull off such a thing.

Comments

Alfie Pickering

Fri, 01/21/2022 - 5:08am

I think cyber-attacks are a serious threat to the world. Due to the expansion of technology, cyber-attacks have become a good way to attack the enemy. It has increased the number of attacks on various countries. There is no doubt that cyber-attacks are increasing and there is nothing that can be done about it.  I will find out the importance of coursework writing in UK after reading https://www.urdesignmag.com/lifestyle/2020/01/27/importance-of-coursework-writing-in-the-uk/ article because there is interesting information shared in it.

Chuck Chappell (not verified)

Wed, 01/27/2010 - 10:11am

Being old enough to remember military combat operations before GPS was other than a neat toy and not an operational necessity for PGMs, artillery survey, land and air navigation and so forth, I know there are ways to get around this vulnerability using improved models of older technology without giving up much of the functionality GPS provides. Modern technology can make the old standbys of LORAN, intertial gyroscopic positioning, etc. small and reliable enough to serve as a backup or be used as a primary.

This would require changing program and budgeting priorities, as well as requiring additional training time, and I suspect that without the sort of catastrophic shock to the system that might well prove fatal, we will not muster the will to change those priorities. Before such an easily-predictable "black swan" actually occuring, there will be plenty of perfectly plausible bueraucratic reasons to do nothing substantive to prevent it.

As I hear the dissonance between the GOs who seem to see the writing on the wall and the back-room contemptuous dismissal of these ideas from the acquisition and budgeting community as undoable given "fiscal and contractual reality", I often think to myself, "Osama don't give a XXXX about the POM". Neither, I suspect, do the strategic thinkers in the PLA and their masters, except in its ability to make us rigidly unadaptive and hence easier to defeat.

Maj Root (not verified)

Tue, 01/26/2010 - 8:41pm

I would expand upon Maj White's comments to include the impact on aviation. Speaking from an Army aviation perspective, recent cockpit digitization and modernization has greatly increased the capability of our aircraft while placing increasing strain on pilots to manage all of these resources. GPS and moving maps have helped reduce some of the burden on pilots and allowed them to focus on flying, firing, and communicating. Training without the "GPS crutch" is essential however to ensure that our pilots are aware of the additional workload associated with navigating entirely using paper maps rather than using maps as a backup or to spot check the GPS.

I would submit that the impact to UAVs, however, is more profound. Most helicopter pilots learned to fly using the "ole fashioned" map before learning to rely on GPS. This is much more challenging for UAV operators who always had access to GPS. Map navigation is far more difficult given the limited UAV camera field of view and the lack of peripheral vision. If GPS coordinates were untrustworthy, operators may not be able to recover their assets. This would be particularly true for small UAVs that fly at lower altitudes further complicating map navigation.

I would agree that we need to reinforce the importance of "no GPS" training exercises perhaps by intentionally spoofing GPS signals within the training AO. By no means is this the highest priority, but it ought to be considered for all aviation training.

Maj White (not verified)

Tue, 01/26/2010 - 4:31pm

Technology has its ups and downs. The ease with which a maneuver unit can find its objective, the precison of our weapons, and the locating of downed aircraft are only a few. However, the over reliance on GPS systems by our military does pose a significant threat to the success of our military during combat operations, as well as a threat to the overall security of the United States.

At the most basic Soldier, Sailor, Airman, and Marine level GPS systems are enabling our fighting men/women to navigate the battlefield with an ease and efficiency that has never been experienced before. We have to ask ourselves something though. To what degree can they navigate without a GPS? Are we losing basic skills like navigating with a map and compass?

While speaking with NCOs assigned to Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS) I was informed that the current Special Forces canidates are having serious issues on land navigation courses. Navigation by map and compass is a perishable skill that must be utilized or it will be lost. The canidates are tough as nails, in remarkable physical condition, and have an impressive amount of combat experience, but seem to be lacking in this important basic skill. Perhaps their combat experience, and more importantly their reliance on navigating by GPS in combat has hampered their performance.

What does this mean? How well will our future force be able to navigate the battlefield if our GPS systems fail us?