The DoD: Stewards of a global information resource, the Navstar Global Positioning System

In 1973, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) began the development of the Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) and embarked on a journey that woul d take radio navigation and positioning to what were then unimagined levels of performance. From its inception, GPS was viewed as a revolutionary tech nology that would enhance the positioning capability of U.S. and allied mil itary forces throughout the world. The DoD has continued to upgrade and imp rove all of the components of the system to keep pace with technology advan ces and the requirements of an ever-expanding user community. Today, GPS has evolved far beyond the vision of its original designers, and satellite navigation is now widely recognized as a worldwide information r esource for both military and civilian users. The GPS user community includ es an increasing number of civil, scientific, and commercial applications, ranging from precision farming to pinpointing disruptions in electric power distribution networks. However this dual military and civil aspect of GPS has posed significant challenges for U.S. Government and DoD policy makers. Since the inception of GPS, the DoD has been confronted with the need to ba lance a wide range of different and sometimes competing national security c ivil, foreign policy, commercial, and scientific interests. The challenge h as been to exploit the full civil utility of the system without jeopardizin g national security interests in the process. This challenge will became ev en more formidable for military leaders as U.S, and allied forces become in creasingly reliant on GPS for all types of military operations, and as the applications of the worldwide civil user community continue to expand.