NATO’s recent establishment of Baltic Sentry (2025), Eastern Sentry (2025), and Arctic Sentry (2026) reflects more than a response to Russian aggression. Collectively, these operations demonstrate how modern deterrence has evolved to address persistent airspace violations, hybrid warfare, cyber-attacks, sabotage of critical infrastructure, and grey-zone coercion. While these missions are conventional military operations, they derive their strategic credibility from something far more significant, NATO’s integrated nuclear deterrence architecture.

This distinction is critical. NATO’s Sentry operations are not isolated military activities; they are conducted within an alliance whose conventional forces are underwritten by the collective nuclear capabilities of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Any adversary contemplating escalation understands that conventional confrontation with NATO carries the inherent risk of nuclear escalation. This integration between conventional and nuclear deterrence has underpinned Euro-Atlantic security for more than seventy years.

For the Indo-Pacific, the lesson is clear. As China rapidly expands its nuclear arsenal, North Korea continues to develop increasingly sophisticated nuclear and missile capabilities, and Russia under Vladimir Putin has revived Cold War-era nuclear coercion, regional allies cannot assume that conventional military cooperation alone will provide credible deterrence. If deterrence is to succeed, it must be built upon a coherent nuclear alliance before a crisis emerges, not after deterrence has already failed.

Conventional Operations Backed by Nuclear Deterrence

The strategic significance of NATO’s Sentry operations lies not simply in what they do, but in what stands behind them. Baltic Sentry enhances surveillance and protection of undersea communications cables, energy infrastructure, and maritime approaches following repeated acts of sabotage and suspicious activity in the Baltic Sea. Eastern Sentry reinforces NATO’s eastern flank through enhanced air policing, intelligence sharing, and rapid response capabilities in the face of persistent Russian military activity. Arctic Sentry reflects NATO’s growing focus on the High North as Russia and China expand their military presence in an increasingly contested region.

These operations improve situational awareness, interoperability, and alliance readiness. Yet none of them exist in isolation. Their credibility stems from NATO’s integrated command structure, collective defense commitments under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, shared military planning, and, fundamentally, the Alliance’s nuclear deterrence posture. NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group, alongside the independent nuclear forces of the United Kingdom and France and the United States extended nuclear deterrence commitments, ensures that any conventional confrontation carries strategic consequences far beyond the immediate theater.

This layered approach to deterrence is central to NATO’s success. Conventional operations deter day-to-day coercion, while nuclear deterrence prevents adversaries from believing they can escalate a conventional conflict without unacceptable consequences. The two cannot be separated; together they create a coherent deterrence architecture.

The Indo-Pacific’s Strategic Environment Has Changed

The Indo-Pacific now faces a security environment increasingly defined by nuclear competition. China’s rapid expansion and modernization of its nuclear arsenal is reshaping the regional balance of power. At the same time, Beijing continues to employ sustained grey-zone coercion through military pressure around Taiwan, coercive operations in the South China Sea, cyber campaigns, and increasingly frequent air and maritime incursions directed at neighboring states.

North Korea’s advancing nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs add another layer of strategic complexity. Pyongyang’s continued weapons development increases the likelihood that any regional crisis could involve nuclear coercion or escalation.

Meanwhile, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated that nuclear weapons remain central to great-power competition. Throughout the conflict, President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly employed nuclear rhetoric and strategic signaling to deter Western intervention. The assumption that the end of the Cold War marked the end of nuclear coercion has proven false.

For Indo-Pacific allies, this means they are confronting not one, but three nuclear-armed challengers whose strategic interests increasingly overlap. Yet the region’s security architecture remains fragmented.

The Missing Foundation

The United States maintains strong bilateral alliances with Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. Regional initiatives such as AUKUS and the Quad have strengthened defense cooperation, technological collaboration, and strategic coordination. These arrangements make important contributions to regional security.

However, they do not constitute an integrated alliance comparable to NATO. They lack common command arrangements, formalized collective defense obligations across the region, institutionalized nuclear consultation mechanisms, and a unified framework for integrating conventional and nuclear deterrence. This matters because conventional military cooperation alone cannot provide fully credible deterrence against nuclear-armed adversaries. NATO’s experience demonstrates that conventional operations derive their strategic weight from the knowledge that they are backed by a credible and integrated nuclear alliance. Without that strategic foundation, conventional activities risk being viewed as isolated demonstrations of resolve rather than components of a comprehensive deterrence posture. The Indo-Pacific is therefore attempting to strengthen conventional deterrence without first establishing the alliance architecture that gives such deterrence its greatest credibility.

Building Deterrence Before Crisis

History consistently demonstrates that alliances formed during conflict rarely prevent that conflict. They manage its consequences instead. Europe’s recent experience illustrates this lesson. Many of NATO’s most significant reforms, including enhanced forward deployments,

strengthened infrastructure protection, expanded readiness, and the establishment of the Sentry operations, were accelerated in response to deteriorating security conditions following Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. They represent adaptation after strategic warning signs became impossible to ignore.

The Indo-Pacific still has an opportunity to act before reaching a comparable point. Rather than waiting for a crisis over Taiwan, the South China Sea, or the Korean Peninsula to force hurried institutional change, regional democracies should begin developing the alliance structures necessary to sustain credible deterrence.

Such an alliance would not require every member to possess nuclear weapons. Instead, it would integrate conventional planning with extended nuclear deterrence, establish mechanisms for strategic consultation, coordinate contingency planning, strengthen interoperability, and ensure that regional conventional operations are supported by a credible nuclear deterrent capable of deterring nuclear-armed adversaries.

Conclusion

NATO’s Baltic Sentry, Eastern Sentry, and Arctic Sentry operations are not simply conventional military initiatives. They are visible expressions of a much deeper strategic reality: conventional deterrence is most credible when backed by an integrated nuclear alliance. Their effectiveness rests not only on ships, aircraft, and surveillance systems, but on the certainty that any attempt to escalate against NATO would confront the Alliance’s collective nuclear deterrent.

The Indo-Pacific faces an increasingly dangerous strategic environment characterized by a rapidly expanding Chinese nuclear arsenal, an emboldened North Korea, and a resurgent Russia that has returned nuclear coercion to the center of international politics. In such an environment, conventional cooperation alone is unlikely to provide sufficient deterrence.

The central lesson from NATO’s Sentry operations is therefore not that the Indo-Pacific should simply replicate these missions. It is that such operations derive their credibility from the nuclear alliance that stands behind them. Waiting to build that alliance until deterrence has failed would repeat the strategic mistakes history has repeatedly exposed. The time to establish an integrated Indo-Pacific nuclear alliance is before a crisis begins, not after conflict has already become unavoidable.

Natalie Treloar is the Australian Company Director of Alpha-India Consultancy, a Senior Fellow at the Indo-Pacific Studies Center (IPSC), a Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies (NIDS), and a member of the Open Nuclear Network (ONN). Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

NATO’s Sentry Operations Show Why the Indo-Pacific Needs a Nuclear Alliance was originally published on Global Security Review.

The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was intended to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, and it has achieved remarkable success. Since the treaty was entered into force in 1970, only three states have managed to acquire a nuclear weapons capability, namely India, Pakistan, and North Korea. The collective West initially opted for peaceful measures to ensure non-proliferation, such as the formation of NSG after India’s 1974 test aimed at limiting the flow of nuclear fuel and technology to “could be” nuclear states.

However, there have also been forceful measures to prevent nuclear proliferation. The U.S. and Israel have repeatedly engaged in counterproliferation (CP) and in some cases, “offensive counterproliferation” such as in Iraq, and Syria, and most recently Iran. But does this forceful compliance achieve lasting non-proliferation goals? Or does it entrench the target state’s psychological dependence on nuclear weapons for survival?

As the decade of 1980s unfolded, non-proliferation efforts turned violent when the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak was attacked by Israel and subsequently destroyed. Although the reactor program was severely damaged, Iraq continued to pursue a nuclear weapon. Thereafter, the Gulf-War of 1991 put an end to Iraq’s nuclear program forever. Although Richard Betts argues otherwise; he notes that Osirak was not the key component to weapons production.

Like Osirak, the Al-Kibar nuclear facility in Syria was targeted by Israeli airstrikes in 2007. The site was alleged to be a plutonium production facility based on a North Korean reactor. Syria, a signatory of the NPT, could not protest Israeli violation of its airspace and the destruction of a site undeclared to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In 2008, the IAEA concluded, after a visit, that chemically processed uranium traces were found around the site of the destroyed reactor. The IAEA requested further inspection, but the Syrian government denied access. The attack on Al-Kibar demonstrates limited success in offensive CP. Although it is not yet certain whether Syria was close to making a bomb or even attempting to make one, the attack certainly imposed a logistical setback on Syria, triggered the IAEA inspections on a site which was undeclared to the agency, and resulted in greater international scrutiny of Syrian nuclear activities.

The most significant factor in the Israeli CP strategy is Iran. The CP strategy in Iran was marked by the targeted assassination of individuals associated with Iran’s nuclear program. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was considered responsible for the Iranian nuclear weapons program, was assassinated in 2020. In addition to this, another peculiarity of the Iran CP involves the use of cyber-attacks to disrupt reactor operations. The infamous Stuxnet had damaged a considerable number of centrifuges in the Natanz nuclear facility and highlighted lapses and vulnerabilities in its cyber and operational security.

In 2025, Iranian nuclear facilities became targets of kinetic attacks by the U.S. and Israel. The U.S. claimed victory by announcing the “obliteration” of the targeted Iranian nuclear facilities. However, Iran, several independent analysts, and even the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) disagreed with the U.S. president. Nonetheless, the twelve-day war concluded in a ceasefire, which did not last and the U.S. and Israel resumed actions to curtail Iranian nuclear ambitions.

Contrary to the instances in Iraq and Syria, the IAEA agrees more with Iran than with the U.S. and Israel on matters of Iran’s enrichment, nuclear facilities, and nuclear weapons ambitions. As the war began in early hours of March 2026, the IAEA chief Antonnio Grossi said that Iran has “no structured program to build nuclear weapons”. Not to mention Iran is a signatory to the NPT, its government has no plans to acquire nuclear weapons, and the late Ayatollah Khamenei had even issued a religious verdict, acting as the principal block to Iran’s nuclear weapons.

In Iraq, Syria, and Iran, it can be argued that offensive CP yields unsatisfactory results and often backfires on legitimate, peaceful non-proliferation efforts. The 2003 U.S. invasion, which forced regime change in Iraq, was initiated under the pretext of Iraqi WMDs and nuclear weapons program. It was later concluded that no substantial proof existed that the Iraqi nuclear weapons program continued after the 1991 Gulf War. David Allison and Tyler Brown note that “The Gulf War destroyed much of Iraq’s ability to acquire material for a nuclear weapon, and the program was abandoned in the early 1990s in the face of international sanctions and inspections.”

But the Iranian case might become the most striking example of a failed offensive CP effort. The assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, politico-military leadership, and nuclear facilities has only emboldened Iran and the hardliners within. According to John J. Mearsheimer, Iran’s new Ayatollah may consider going nuclear. Although offensive CP may reduce a state’s opportunity to build a nuclear weapon, it always backfires as far as the willingness of the target country to acquire nuclear weapons is concerned. A state that becomes vulnerable to foreign invasions/surgical strikes will certainly be more inclined than before to acquire nuclear deterrence.

In conclusion, non-proliferation efforts tend to yield positive results if they remain peaceful. The NPT’s peaceful mechanisms have prevented even technologically capable states, such as Japan and Germany, from acquiring nuclear weapons. Moreover, it is to the NPT’s credit that Libya stopped its nuclear program. Ukraine was disarmed in 1994, and South Africa abandoned its fully operational nuclear weapons between 1989 and 1991. Using military means against a proliferator not only does not dismantle the target nuclear program but may instead bolster the target country’s resolve to rely more on nuclear deterrence to secure state sovereignty. The same effect is generated in other states too, those who may fear their survival and seek nuclear weapons to offset adversary disarmament or decapitating strikes. With treaties faltering, increased signaling, and continued breach of state sovereignty, states that subscribe to hardcore realist points-of-view will inevitably choose the nuclear route over arms control.

Ali Abbas is a Research Officer at Balochistan Think Tank Network. He writes on Nuclear Deterrence, Strategic Stability, Arms Control, and Emerging Disruptive Technology. He can be reached at aliabbas_changezi@hotmail.com.  Views expressed in the article are the author’s own. 

The Pitfalls of Offensive Counterproliferation was originally published on Global Security Review.

AI has improved intelligence operations in developing nations, but it has also created a new intelligence gap due to disjointed technological implementation, political exploitation of surveillance, reliance on foreign suppliers, and insufficient integration between HUMINT and AI-driven systems. Pakistan and India have large human resources and developing technological ecosystems, but institutional fragmentation and political agendas prevent the development of integrated, modern intelligence frameworks.

The problems that South Asian intelligence services are having are part of a larger global transformation. AI is now a segment of intelligence operation in the US, China, Israel, and some European countries. This includes automated translation, pattern-of-life analysis, algorithmic triage of intercepted data, commercial satellite imagery analytics, and cyber-enabled anomaly detection. China’s surveillance state uses AI-powered facial recognition, behavior prediction, and nationwide data fusion to show what a fully integrated intelligence model looks like. The U.S. is pushing for automated signals intelligence (SIGINT) processing and predictive analysis in all its intelligence agencies in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). As shown in studies of its military AI systems, Israel uses AI in real-time targeting and ISR fusion.

Developing countries are just as vulnerable to cyber-attacks, terrorism, and false information, but they do not have the institutional frameworks that let AI grow. This global gap is what makes the changes in intelligence in Pakistan and India so important for strategy. Pakistan and India have both spent resources on AI-enabled surveillance systems like ID databases, CCTV networks, predictive policing tools, interception systems, and cyber technologies that come from other countries. The NADRA database and Safe City projects in Pakistan give a lot of biometric and real-time data. India has made the Central Monitoring System (CMS) and the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) to connect databases between state agencies. The ministry, military, police, and intelligence systems are separate. Legacy bureaucracies promote compartmentalization over integration. AI needs centralized databases, clean data, agency cooperation, and agreed analysis criteria. These requirements are missing; hence, AI systems exhibit limited and inconsistent intelligence. Agencies are collecting more data than ever but lack the framework to analyze it.

Pakistan and India still value HUMINT for intelligence. It is crucial for counterterrorism, political spying, and regional operations. HUMINT alone can’t compete with hybrid enemies who use AI-driven processing. Strategically, China’s integrated military and civilian AI ecosystem is advantageous. Developing states are stuck between two sources of intelligence: First is a legacy HUMINT system with deep networks and second is an AI ecosystem that is fragmented and not fully developed, so it cannot support strategic analysis. In cross-border threat assessments, cyber invasions, and emerging non-traditional security issues like information warfare, this mismatch causes delays, blind spots, and analytical distortions.

In both Pakistan and India, AI-enabled surveillance has been used more for political purposes than for improving strategic intelligence. Amnesty International reported that India’s use of Pegasus spyware targeted journalists, activists, and political opponents. Pakistan has been criticized for using automated social media monitoring and political profiling, which often focuses on threats from within the country rather than threats from other countries. When surveillance tools are used to control political competition within a party, two things happen. First, institutional resources prioritize domestic control over strategic analysis. Second, technology investments strengthen policing instead of updating intelligence. This challenges national security by making it harder for the intelligence system to predict cyberattacks, regional crises, and threats from outside the country.

South Asia has a lot of foreign AI and cyber infrastructure. Pakistan employs Chinese surveillance equipment (Hikvision, Huawei), while India uses Israeli, US, and European and American forensics platforms. This increases structural risks, including data exfiltration and espionage due to entrenched vulnerabilities, strategic reliance on foreign updates, and weakened sovereignty over vital intelligence activities.

Two traditional rivals, nuclear-weapon states, are weakened by this reliance. AI-powered surveillance systems increase digital access points for assault. Big national data repositories attract attackers. Pakistan has had multiple government system hacks, and India has had large breaches that compromised critical infrastructure and government information.  Failures in the past were largely caused by human error, but in the AI era, bias in algorithms, data manipulation, hostile and automated cyberattacks, and misclassification can lead to erroneous operational decisions. These dangers make the strategy unstable.

Increasing intelligence gaps between Pakistan and India jeopardize national and regional security. More likely to misjudge opponents: In fast-moving crises, agencies may miss signals, misjudge threats, or misread trends without AI–HUMINT fusion. Cross-border escalation risks rise; poor intelligence integration in nuclearized environments may aggravate misperceptions during crises like the 2019 Pulwama–Balakot incident or the May 2025 standoff. Cyber attacks expose national secrets. Easy-to-get digital network intelligence can have fatal repercussions. China-asymmetric strategic competition: China is decades ahead in intelligence upgrading, and Pakistan and India may fall further. Domestic AI reduces institutional capacity: political survival trumps strategic intelligence.

In summary, countries that do not update their intelligence risk being caught off guard, making mistakes, and becoming more vulnerable. The myths of shadows, secrecy, and huge people networks that fueled emerging country intelligence organizations are gone. AI has highlighted bureaucratic opacity’s long-hidden structural flaws: dysfunctional systems, politicized surveillance, reliance on foreign technology, and a lack of HUMINT-AI integration. Thus, Pakistan and India’s new intelligence divide is not about data or resources. It is about institutions’ failure to transition from analogue intelligence to AI-connected ecosystems. State and non-state adversaries that accelerate this transformation will benefit.

In nuclearized, crisis-prone South Asia, small misunderstandings could lead to massive wars. Pakistan and India need more than AI tools to stay competitive strategically. They need data architectures that work together, technical specialists, protocols to prevent politicians from abusing their authority, and strategic AI–HUMINT fusion.

Dr. Tahir Mahmood Azad is currently a research scholar at the Department of Politics & International Relations, the University of Reading, UK.  Views expressed in this article are the author’s own. 

The Intelligence Illusion: How AI is Exposing Strategic Vulnerabilities in the Developing World was originally published on Global Security Review.

Nuclear incidents could lead to catastrophic radioactive contamination and a global emergency. In this regard, the South Asian model for the India-Pakistan Non-Attack Agreement is a milestone achievement in nuclear risk reduction. It was a breakthrough agreement that prevented two arch-rivals from attacking each other’s nuclear sites despite several intense standoffs. It played a crucial role in ensuring nuclear facilities remain off-limits by preventing catastrophic escalations and reinforcing stability.

Contemporary conflicts are increasingly defined by disruptive and cutting-edge technologies, such as drone and cyber attacks that introduce a new dimension to conflict and exposed nuclear infrastructure to unprecedented vulnerabilities. It is thus time for P-5 states and the IAEA to formulate an international non-attack agreement to ensure nuclear restraint. The world cannot afford another nuclear disaster due to the negligence of the international community and the absence of a proper enforcement mechanism.

After the nuclearization of South Asia in 1974, India conducted its first nuclear test, Smiling Buddha. Pakistan sensed a pre-emptive strike against its nuclear research labs. The rivalry got more intense when India hedged against blowing up Pakistan’s Kahuta Nuclear Research Laboratories. In return, Pakistan assured India that any attack on Kahuta would evoke a retaliatory strike on its Bhabha Atomic Nuclear Plant.

To avert such future scenarios, both states agreed to sign the bilateral accord. Since doing so, and despite several conflicts like the Kargil conflict (1999), the 2001–2002 military standoff, and the Pulwama-Balakot crisis (2019), neither state has targeted the other’s nuclear facilities. Therefore, the India-Pakistan Non-Attack Agreement’s successful implementation in a highly volatile region, where nuclear-armed neighbors are eyeball-to-eyeball, sets a precedent that serves as a model for other states to follow.

The provisions of the India-Pakistan Non-Attack Agreement, require that both states refrain from “undertaking, encouraging, or participating in any action aimed at causing the destruction or damage to any nuclear installation or facility in the other country.” This is a model for a global nuclear security non-attack commitment. The agreement clearly defines nuclear installations to include research reactors, uranium enrichment plants, reprocessing facilities, and storage sites for radioactive material.

The second provision of the agreement is the Classification of Protected Sites. The Annual Exchange of Nuclear Facility List is the most important clause. Under this clause India and Pakistan exchange lists of their nuclear facilities every January 1, ensuring transparency, avoiding miscalculations, and implementing risk mitigation. This agreement sets the ground rules that even hostile states can uphold nuclear restraint, and the international community must take a lesson from this model to formulate an international nuclear non-attack agreement.

Moreover, the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 is a stark reminder of the devastating consequences of nuclear incidents, with radiation leaks contaminating large areas and causing long-term ecological and health crises. While commenting on an attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a drone hit the concrete shelter, sparking a fire that caused significant damage, but radiation remained under control. Both Ukrainian and Russian officials released their respective statements, denying the responsibility for the drone strike.

The pertinent question here is not who is responsible, but rather the safety and security of nuclear facilities during conflict and the need for militaries to exercise restraint. The war might end one day, but the hazards of nuclear radiation persist far longer. Meanwhile, existing international laws provide some protections for nuclear sites, but they lack enforceable mechanisms to deter attacks. The Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I (1977) classify nuclear power plants as civilian objects that should not be targeted. However, these clauses are not binding under all circumstances, leaving loopholes for states to exploit during wartime.

Furthermore, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguard protocols primarily focus on nonproliferation and the safety of nuclear materials, rather than averting military strikes on nuclear sites. Here the absence of clear, legally binding enforcement mechanisms in international law means that states can act with impunity while targeting nuclear sites in conflict zones. Hence, the Chernobyl drone attack demonstrates the urgency for a comprehensive and enforceable global agreement.

The new international nuclear non-attack agreement should essentially address the weaknesses in existing laws. The P5 (China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US) and the IAEA must spearhead a legally binding comprehensive treaty prohibiting any form of attack on nuclear infrastructure. This new agreement should explicitly include these several nuclear restraints. Starting from the military restrictions that should prohibit all military operations in the vicinity of designated nuclear sites. This includes ground forces, aerial strikes, reconnaissance missions, and drone activities near nuclear installations.

Further states must ensure annual transparency measures to prevent miscalculations. Each party must be required to exchange lists of their nuclear facilities annually, similar to the India-Pakistan model.

Most importantly, there must be severe consequences if any state violates the agreement by conducting a strike, covert operation, or cyberattack on nuclear facilities. Such a state must face severe economic sanctions, diplomatic consequences, and potential designation as a rogue state. Finally, there must be a prohibition on cyber and non-kinetic attacks.

The UN Security Council and leading nuclear powers, the P5 states, should take the responsibility of drafting and enforcing the agreement. These nations must set aside geopolitical rivalries and recognize that the threat of nuclear facility attacks endanger global stability. Additionally, the IAEA must play a more proactive role in integrating nuclear facility protection into global conflict prevention strategies.

The Chernobyl drone strike and the volatile situation in Zaporizhzhia is a wake-up call, a warning that nuclear security cannot be taken for granted in modern warfare. As conflicts become increasingly complex, nuclear sites will remain vulnerable unless strong, enforceable international agreements are put in place. The world cannot afford to wait for another disaster before taking decisive action.

Sana Ahmed is an MS scholar at the Center for International Peace and Stability (CIPS), NUST, and a researcher at the Islamabad-based independent think tank Strategic Vision Institute (SVI).

A South Asian Blueprint for Nuclear Risk Reduction was originally published on Global Security Review.

While no single agency oversees Russian cyberattacks, the amount of personnel involved in these operations continues to increase. There is a heavy reliance on criminal and civilian involvement to conduct offensive measures. Combining Russian interest in cyber and outer space has led to the “proliferation of handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) jammers, deployment of road-mobile jammers, and even development and testing of space-based jammers,” as reported on by Sarah Mineiro. She also warns that Russia can hack American ground control systems for the GPS constellation.

 Types of Satellite Cyberattacks

Though electronic means of interfering with satellite signals, such as jamming or spoofing, occur at a more frequent rate, attacks using cyber may prove to be more impactful and frequent in the next decade. Cyberattacks “target the data itself and the systems that use, transmit, and control the flow of data,” potentially causing irreparable harm for military commanders and civilians reliant on communications and navigation systems for decision-making.

Like other cyberattacks, those on satellites and their networks require four main components: “access, vulnerability, a malicious payload, and a command-and-control system.” Multiple methods and modes of attack can take out a satellite system or render it inoperable without using kinetic force. Adversaries can target the networks that satellites use, individual satellites, and the supply chains that produce satellite hardware and software. The Center for Strategic and International Studies describes three main types of cyberattacks: data intercept/monitoring, data corruption, and seizure of control.

First, there is data interception or monitoring, which is often seen as espionage. Adversaries may find spying to be a strategically sound decision to anticipate the next moves of the United States and leverage this knowledge in diplomatic or military channels. Secure World Foundation reports that many attempts of back door installations into American satellite networks were found in “Chinese electronics and Russian software packages.”

Additionally, the communications from the ground to a satellite and a satellite to the ground often use “open (unencrypted) telecom network security protocols,” Luke Shadbolt warns—making these systems vulnerable.

Second, data corruption, like a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, is accomplished through corrupting satellite data or even ransomware attempts to hold data hostage unless payment is received by the attackers. Secure World Foundation describes how a group of university students developed a DoS technique that causes GPS receivers to crash when they try to decode malicious signals. Reports in 1999 surfaced that an unknown actor hacked the United Kingdom’s Skynet satellite, requiring payment to become operational again. Though the British Minister of Defense described the claim as “impossible”  at the time, more of these instances may occur as computer systems advance and space networks fail to evolve with greater security.

Third, while American policymakers may focus mainly on protecting networks, defending against the seizure of a satellite remains equally important. Such seizures could result in the deliberate destruction of the spacecraft, creating considerable debris that threatens other systems on orbit.

Equally likely, a hacker could transfer ownership of a system, so the original user is completely locked out and the capability of a satellite is given to the adversary. In 1998, a German-American satellite was hacked and destroyed. Attackers fried the optics by turning the satellite towards the sun. Unfortunately, examples of hacked satellites continue into the twenty-first century. Bill Malik reports that “there are six known examples of hackers successfully interfering with or even commanding unauthorized maneuvers of NASA satellites before 2011.”

 Looking Forward: Addressing Cyber Threats

The US currently invests in multiple avenues to combat the possibility of satellite hacking, a challenge made more difficult by the same factors that affect other industries and targets. For general satellite protection, the Air Force Research Laboratory is beginning its fourth year of sponsoring a satellite hacking challenge to involve researchers across the country. The Hack-A-Sat competition opened for registration in February with this year’s format involving the use of an on-orbit satellite for the first time.

“Space cybersecurity is a global issue, which is why it is so important that Hack-A-Sat is open to the global security research community,” said Col. Kenny Decker. Across the Atlantic, the European Space Agency sponsors similar competitions with HackCYSAT.

Recently, the geospatial intelligence company, Orbital Insight, won a Department of Defense contract to identify intentional global navigation system disruptions. Orbital’s platform aims to use artificial intelligence to detect spoofing operations. According to the National Security Agency’s (NSA) Aaron Ferguson, it is a goal of NSA is to develop, “a way to characterize telemetry data so that as we deploy new satellites, we can make adjustments.” Finally, HDI Global Specialty argues that “the backbone of a cyber-resilient spacecraft should be a robust Intrusion Detection System (IDS).” Encryption and authentication must become priorities for the US government to implement in satellites and satellite systems.

Conclusion

Russia poses a large security threat to the United States even outside the future possibility of satellite hacking. Russian aggression in Ukraine demonstrated blatant disregard for Western ideals of a rules-based international order. It is no longer possible for policymakers to secure stability and prevent conflict by relying on post–Cold War paradigms.

Previous engagement through international communication channels is unlikely to reduce threats to critical infrastructure. As state-sponsored groups and proxy actors continue to target American assets, it is necessary to prepare for multiple modes of attack, especially in the space and cyber domains. A whole-of-government approach to defend against this new generation of conflict can increase reactivity in the event of an attack and aims to provide a deterrent against the targeting of satellites. As the twenty-first century evolves, implementing these solutions is one of the most important challenges the nation faces.

Russia and the Growing Danger of Satellite Cyberattacks was originally published on Global Security Review.