In 2017, two people unknowingly working as proxies for North Korean intelligence approached Kim Jong Nam at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. In what they thought was a practical joke for a television program, the women took turns wiping Kim’s face with a cloth, which was later determined to be laced with a deadly chemical weapon, VX nerve agent. Kim’s nervous system began to shut down, and within minutes he was dead. North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, had successfully deployed a dangerous chemical weapon on foreign soil and assassinated his half-brother, deemed by the regime as a political threat. The assassination of Kim Jong Nam confirmed that Pyongyang had weaponized the covert delivery of chemical agents and had no hesitation in using them.

While significant focus is placed on Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, and rightly so, there is inadequate attention to the threat from the regime’s chemical and biological weapons programs. North Korea reportedly possesses a variety of chemical and biological agents. Despite decades of sanctions, the regime has proven adept at building and leveraging dual use industrial infrastructure to produce chemical and biological weapons. This infrastructure allows North Korea to maintain deniability while producing at scale. North Korea can deliver chemical and biological weapons in a variety of ways. Biological weapons can be introduced covertly into vulnerable supply chains. The regime has made plans to send special forces infected with biological agents into enemy territory. Moreover, conventional weapon systems, such as artillery and rockets, could deliver chemical and biological agents over large areas.

North Korea has multiple pathways to accelerate its biological and chemical weapons programs. Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) is one such pathway. CRISPR is a gene-editing technology that modifies DNA sequences to achieve various objectives. For example, an existing biological weapon could be modified to target specific animal, food, or human populations. Another pathway includes leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to augment gaps in scientific research. AI could both expand the threat from CRISPR or help North Korea develop entirely new weapons. North Korea’s deepening relationship with Russia is a third pathway. Russia has decades of experience developing and testing biological weapons going back to the Cold War, and has demonstrated its willingness to use chemical weapons for assassination and allegedly on the battlefield in Ukraine. A lack of consequences has undoubtedly given Moscow and Pyongyang the confidence to further develop these capabilities. Moreover, it is concerning that Russia appears to have few constraints on what knowledge and technology it transfers to North Korea. If Moscow decides to share its vast knowledge of chemical and biological weapons with Pyongyang, there is little Washington can do.

Beyond ethical considerations, Western military and political observers have long questioned the utility of these weapons on the battlefield. Chemical and biological weapons are sensitive to moisture, temperature, and other environmental factors. Does any of this matter to decisionmakers in Pyongyang? Consider that North Korea would not succeed in causing mass

casualties. It is plausible that the regime would be satisfied with causing mass disruption to military logistics, terrifying civilian populations, and complicating allied calculations and possible responses. In this scenario, Washington’s limited theater nuclear options may not credibly deter Pyongyang.

Furthermore, it is questionable whether a President would escalate to nuclear weapons, thereby risking North Korean retaliation against the homeland or elsewhere in the Pacific. This emboldens the regime, giving it confidence to engage in lesser forms of aggression with minimal risk. Kim’s confidence is likely to increase as his military capabilities modernize, his nuclear program becomes more sophisticated, and his relationship with Russia expands. Policy analysts and decisionmakers should avoid mirror-imaging and evaluate these issues from Pyongyang’s perspective.

North Korea has options. These options provide the regime with coercive leverage and mechanisms to escalate during a crisis or conflict. The evolving relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang, and Moscow’s potential role in a future conflict on the Korean Peninsula, is amplifying the danger. Given the rapidly evolving security situation, the United States should reevaluate its theater nuclear posture in the Pacific. However, to address the growing threat from North Korea’s chemical and biological weapons, Washington must consider a range of options. These include covert action, including cyber operations, against North Korean industry; strengthening preparedness and response infrastructure at home and abroad; and developing deeper insights into the regime’s strategic thinking on these issues through a comprehensive partnership between academia and government. Now is the time for Washington to think about the unthinkable.

Nathan A. Heard is an independent researcher and doctoral student in the Defense and Strategic Studies Program at Missouri State University, focused on deterrence issues and emerging threats. He holds a master’s degree in defense and strategic studies and a graduate certificate in countering weapons of mass destruction from Missouri State. Heard is the author of the graduate thesis “A Novel Deterrence Strategy: Denial Through Space and Cyberspace” (2025) and the article “The Coming Crisis with North Korea” (2026). The views expressed are his own.

North Korea Has Options was originally published on Global Security Review.

One example is instructive. The rate at which aircraft locations are electronically manipulated, “spoofed,” increased 500 percent in the first three quarters of 2024. An average of 1,500 flights a day were impacted by the beginning of September. In a recent survey of almost 2,000 flight crew members, 70 percent described their concerns about the impact on aviation safety as either “very high” or “extreme.”

The world depends upon signals from GPS and other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) to underpin virtually every technology. Yet the essential positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) service they provide is incredibly vulnerable.

Weak and Vulnerable Signals

These signals from space are, of necessity, very weak. The sun shining produces stronger radio signals than a GPS satellite. Yet, through a miracle of technology, receivers on earth can find coded signals in the radio noise floor, decipher them, and tell Americans where they are and the exact time.

Exceptionally weak signals mean that almost any interference on the right frequency can prevent them from getting through. For less than ten dollars, delivery drivers looking to electronically hide from their employers, people worried about being tracked by their spouse or the government, and bad actors wanting to disable receivers can buy a GPS “jammer” from any number of internet vendors. Such sales are illegal in most countries, as is the use of such devices. However, enforcement is almost always lax or nonexistent.

Keep in mind, signal specifications were made public as part of GPS becoming America’s “gift to the world,” with the US government encouraging GPS’s broad use. Other GNSS operators did the same.

While incredibly successful in promoting the wide adoption of signals, it has also facilitated spoofing. Compounding the problem, advances in digital technology brought inexpensive software-defined transmitters into the world. Now, for a few hundred dollars, a reasonably sophisticated hobbyist can easily imitate GPS and other satellite navigation signals.

The necessity of PNT services for everyday life and over-reliance on GPS/GNSS for PNT makes the vulnerability of signals to denial and imitation a primary weapon in conflicts around the globe.

This impacts millions of those not involved in these conflicts because any receiver within line-of-sight of the interfering transmitter can be affected. Thus, cell phone systems in Finland are degraded by drone defenses in St. Petersburg. First responders across the Middle East must use paper maps because of ongoing conflicts. Ships and aircraft, hundreds of miles from military actions, lose their navigation and collision avoidance systems. Given the number of conflicts around the planet, many regions of the world are adversely affected.

To date, appeals by international maritime and aviation professional organizations have failed to make an impact on the problem. The same is true for resolutions by the United Nation’s International Maritime Organization and International Civil Aviation Organization. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which seems to have the principal jurisdiction for this, is proving similarly ineffective.

At its World Radio Conference in December 2023, ITU delegates approved what, at first glance, appears to be a strong resolution enjoining member states to refrain from interfering with GNSS signals. The only way the resolution could pass was with an exception allowing interference “for security or defense purposes.” It is hard to imagine any other reason for which a state would disrupt signals.

Despite the failures of international diplomacy to mitigate this growing problem, there is likely a path for it to be much more successful. Attacks on GPS and other GNSS signals are useful only because most nations and systems over-depend on them with few alternatives.

Fortunately, many countries are actively considering establishing robust and resilient terrestrial PNT systems to complement signals from space. These can provide GPS-like information, but do not have common vulnerabilities and failure modes with GNSS.

The US Department of Transportation, the lead in America for civil PNT issues, said that intelligently using a combination of independent signals from space, terrestrial broadcast, and fiber cable can be the foundation of a resilient national PNT architecture.

Establishing such a system of systems will not make the services invulnerable. However, it will make them hard enough to disrupt so that antagonists will look elsewhere for opportunities to create mischief. Some nations are already taking significant steps toward achieving such resilience.

South Korea and Saudi Arabia field high-power terrestrial systems that provide PNT. The United Kingdom fields a partial system and seems poised to expand it, as well as a deployable capability. Much of Russia is also served by such a system.

China has the world’s most complete and advanced resilient PNT architecture. It includes three constellations of satellites in different orbital planes, an extensive terrestrial broadcast system, and a 20,000-kilometer fiber timing network with 295 “timing stations.”

Yet much of the world remains vulnerable to disruption. Those who interfere are therefore incentivized.

International diplomacy, in the form of the United Nations, can help improve the inevitable transition to resilient PNT by encouraging states to implement sovereign terrestrial systems. These systems will complement and cooperate with GNSS, while also operating independently.

As part of this effort, international standards can be developed to ensure aircraft, ships, and vehicles are able to seamlessly transit between nations. Technical assistance can be provided to nations with little local expertise in the field.

These efforts will greatly reduce the incentive to interfere with GNSS, thereby making it safer and more reliable. It will also reinforce the sovereignty and security of every involved nation.

The alternative is to continue down the path of increasing interference and increasing risk to life and property. Safety margins are already impacted. Ships are already colliding, and passenger aircraft are nearly straying, unannounced, into hostile airspace, all because of spoofing. It is only a matter of time before the world witnesses an avoidable tragedy.

The international community, perhaps in the form of a United Nations task force, must intervene to protect these fragile signals from space and disincentivize future disruptions.

Safer and more reliable signals from space and resilient sovereign terrestrial PNT are in the long-term interest of every nation. Diplomatic efforts must illuminate that shared interest bring parties together and nurture progress for everyone’s benefit.

Dana A. Goward is President of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, www.RNTFnd.org, an educational and scientific charity. He is a member of the president’s National Space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board and formerly served as the maritime navigation authority for the United States. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own. 

How Diplomacy Can Save GPS was originally published on Global Security Review.