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- Caroline Mercer via fox - Most Popular
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25 Years After 9/11, the Next Major Attack May Target GPS, Not Buildings
Re25 Years After 9/11, the Next Major Attack May Target GPS, Not Buildings
A quarter-century of aviation security and counterterrorism investment may not protect against a new class of threat: disruption of the satellite positioning systems that underpin transportation, logistics, emergency response, and the economy.
Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks reshaped American national security, the next major assault on the homeland may not resemble 9/11 at all. Instead of targeting buildings or critical infrastructure, adversaries are increasingly likely to strike the invisible systems that allow the country to function — most notably the satellite positioning networks that underpin modern life.
The U.S. has spent decades and enormous resources hardening aviation security, intelligence gathering, and counterterrorism. Those efforts have made a repeat of the 2001 attacks far more difficult. But threats evolve, and adversaries look for vulnerabilities that defenders have overlooked. As the country becomes more electronically interconnected and dependent, conflicts abroad will extend domestically, aiming to cause disruption, panic, chaos, and potential loss of life.
At the center of this vulnerability is position — the simple but foundational knowledge of where things are. Position underpins how trucks move across the country, how food is planted and harvested, how utilities restore power after disasters, how emergency responders reach people in need, and how military forces maneuver and sustain operations. The world does not run only on roads, communications, banking systems, or the internet. It runs on position.
GPS has performed so reliably that both military and civilian systems have been built around the assumption that it will always be available and trustworthy. That assumption is becoming harder to defend. Recent conflicts have shown that GPS interference, spoofing, and electronic warfare are no longer isolated events but recurring features of modern conflict. The Department of War has made the ability to function without position — contested logistics — one of its top priorities.
According to the U.S. Space Force, China is actively developing and fielding counterspace capabilities intended to disrupt and degrade U.S. space-enabled capabilities, including anti-satellite weapons, electronic warfare systems, and technologies designed to interfere with satellite operations. Governments have publicly warned that adversaries continue expanding their ability to jam, spoof, and disrupt satellite-based positioning. In June, researchers linked several brief, widespread GNSS interference events across Europe to transmissions from Russian satellites, identifying at least three incidents lasting up to 10 seconds.
The vulnerability is not GPS itself but the assumption that vehicles — on the battlefield, on highways, or on city streets — must depend on an external system to function. Every mile between a vehicle and space is another opportunity for an adversary to disrupt position. The techniques used in conflict zones can and likely will be used domestically at large scale. Unlike warfighters, the public is not prepared.
During COVID, the country experienced just a shadow of how quickly uncertainty surrounding essential goods affected public behavior and exposed the fragility of supply chains. A widespread disruption to positioning would not necessarily stop every vehicle or shut down every road. It would, however, introduce uncertainty into transportation, emergency response, fuel distribution, logistics, and commerce at precisely the moment continuity matters most. While not physical terrorism, this economic terrorism would have profound implications for military mobility, emergency response, logistics, and the broader economy.
A study commissioned by the National Institute of Standards and Technology estimated that a nationwide loss of GPS services would cost the U.S. economy roughly $1 billion every day. That figure reflects direct economic impacts. The broader effects on emergency response, logistics, transportation, and public confidence are far more difficult to quantify.
At the same time, the United States is investing billions in autonomous systems, robotic logistics, AI-enabled command and control, and next-generation military capabilities. Much of the public discussion focuses on what those technologies will eventually do, with far less attention paid to what they fundamentally require. Whether a vehicle is operated by a soldier or independently, it must continuously know its position and remain capable of accomplishing its mission.
The United States should continue investing in artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, robotic logistics, and the technologies that will shape the future battlefield. But preparing for tomorrow cannot come at the expense of preparing for today. Twenty-five years after 9/11, the lesson is not simply that the country must prepare for another attack. It is that it must prepare for the next kind of attack.
