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Session C10: GPS in Military Applications/NAVWAR

What is Navigation Warfare? Convergence and Divergence of the Underpinnings of our Sacred Work
Joseph T. Page II, Kenneth Richardson, Michael Rice, Michael Spinello, Mark Schmidt, Gabriel Vargas, Zack Throckmorton, and GT Tovrea, Joint Navigation Warfare Center
Location: Ballroom D
Date/Time: Wednesday, Jun. 4, 1:50 p.m.

While this seemingly rhetorical question may seem odd at the Joint Navigation Conference, a collective of the best subject matter experts within the positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) and navigation warfare (NAVWAR) fields, this briefing attempts to answer the question, “What is Navigation Warfare?” With as much surety as one can with a field of inquiry stretching from outcomes of the 1714 Longitude Act to the twenty-first century, the briefing captures how NAVWAR’s definition has shifted from its origins during the GPS constellation’s initial operating days to modern threats faced by civilian populations along with joint warfighters.
Mathematicians and physicists may use the algorithmic definition of function, prime function, and double prime function to work back from acceleration, to velocity, and to displacement. Within the definition of NAVWAR are three domains – space, cyber, and electromagnetic warfare – that do not use the same paradigms nor completely capture or fuse information in the same way.
Three main questions are asked by PNT users: (1) where am I? (2) how do I get from A-to-B? and (3) what time is it? NAVWAR practitioners ask how to block or obfuscate the adversary’s answers to these fundamental questions, while allowing these queries to be routinely and accurately answered for friendly forces. Efforts within the Joint and Coalition communities to maintain a continuity with the NAVWAR definition will be highlighted.
This briefing will offer a brief historical narrative, while delving into the “early days” of NAVWAR with the GPS constellation. Further discussion on the changing divergence of the Joint Force definition of NAVWAR, from the slipping language in Joint Publication 3-14 to the United States Space Force’s (USSF) attempt to alter the definition into a mission capability. Finally, the NATO definition of NAVWAR is presented to show an “outside” non-U.S. perspective, only cursorily relying on the U.S. DoD Joint Force definition.

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