WASHINGTON — As global military interest in obtaining capabilities to neutralize adversary space systems continues to expand, jamming against GPS and other position, navigation and timing satellites as well as communications birds also is on the rise, according to a new report by the Secure World Foundation.
Released today, SWF’s ninth annual “Global Counterspace Capabilities: An Open Source Assessment” updates earlier reports with information gleaned from open sources in multiple languages from March 2024 to March 2025.
The good news for space operators, including the US government, is that so far, “only non-destructive capabilities are actively being used against satellites in current military operations,” the report finds.
The bad news is that a growing number of militaries around the world are seeking counterspace weapons, both non-lethal and lethal, to target space systems.
“The existence of counterspace capabilities is not new, but the circumstances surrounding them are. Today there are increased incentives for development, and potential use, of offensive counterspace capabilities. There are also greater potential consequences from their widespread use that could have global repercussions well beyond the military, as huge parts of the global economy and society are increasingly reliant on space applications,” the SWF report explains.
“The evidence shows significant research and development of a broad range of destructive and non-destructive counterspace capabilities in multiple countries,” it adds.
The most obvious change between SWF’s April 2025 report and today’s edition is the addition of Germany as the 13th nation actively pursuing counterspace capability — following its September 2025 release of a new military space spending plan and its first space security strategy November 2025.
“Germany historically has had a civil focus to its space program. However, its military, the Bundeswehr, is working to expand its presence in orbit. The combination of a significant planned investment in space and defense systems over the next five years, a new space strategy, and growing engagement in space surveillance points to an increase in German abilities to develop the necessary capabilities to potentially carry out attacks against space systems, should it choose to do so. Germany is changing rapidly from having no offensive counterspace capabilities, to soon having several options available to it,” the SWF report concludes.
The United States, Russia, China, India, Australia, France, Iran, Israel, Japan, North Korea, South Korea and the United Kingdom are the other 12 nations that have developed or are developing counterspace capabilities. The US, Russia and China are the three with the most significant arsenals, having developed, tested and/or deployed a range of capabilities from electronic warfare (EW) systems to direct-ascent anti-satellite missiles to directed energy weapons, SWF said.
Growing Use Of Jamming
The rampant use of radio frequency jamming systems to prevent ground-based receivers from picking up signals from the US Global Position System (GPS) satellites, and other similar systems developed by Europe, Russia and China, is another trend highlighted in the latest SWF counterspace report. Ditto for jamming of satellite communications.
“Jamming is increasing its presence” both within and outside of armed conflicts, Victoria Samson, head of SWF’s Washington Office and a co-author of the new report, told reporters on Monday.
The European Union’s executive body, the European Commission, has chided Russia for its GPS jamming in the Baltics that is having widespread effects on civilian aviation in the region. Furhter, the International Telecommunications Union has condemned both Russia and North Korea for jamming satellites during peacetime.
The SWF report notes that Russia has a broad array of sophisticated ground-based jammers that can be used against GPS receivers and satellites, as well as to jam both the uplinks and downlinks of communications satellites.
Further, it states, “Russia has operational experience in the use of counterspace EW capabilities from current military campaigns, as well as using it within Russia for protecting strategic locations and VIPs. Russia may be developing high-powered space-based EW platforms to augment its existing ground-based systems.”
Likewise, the report says, “Iran has demonstrated an electronic warfare capability to persistently interfere with the broadcast of commercial satellite signals and Starlink ground terminals, although its capacity to interfere with military signals is difficult to ascertain.”
North Korea is not quite as sophisticated as Russia or Iran, but also “has exhibited the capability to jam civilian and military GPS signals within a limited geographical area. There has been no demonstrated ability of North Korea to interfere with satellite communications, although its technical capability remains unknown,” SWF finds.
The United States and Israel have demonstrated similar capabilities, and Australia’s Ministry of Defence has expressed interest in developing jamming systems, the report adds.
The case regarding China’s jamming capabilities is less clear, SWF finds.
“China is likely to have significant EW counterspace capabilities against GNSS and satellite communications, although the exact nature is difficult to determine through open sources. … While there is significant evidence of Chinese scientific research and development of EW capabilities for counterspace applications and some open-source evidence of Chinese EW counterspace capabilities being deployed, there is no public evidence of their active use in military operations,” it explains.
Finally, Samson said, this year’s SWF report finds that there is an emerging trend towards military pursuit of so-called “bodyguard” satellites — that is, small satellites equipped with counterspace capabilities that would shadow and defend high-value military and intelligence satellites from adversary attack.
“France, Germany, Japan and India have all indicated that they are planning or are building these bodyguard satellites. If they do, they will have a co-orbital counterspace capability,” she said.
