By Daniel Kelleher
11.7.2025
Introduction
North Korea has transformed Global Positioning System jamming from sporadic harassment into sophisticated electronic warfare threatening the Republic of Korea’s technology-dependent infrastructure. GPS jamming incidents surged 15-fold from 39 in 2023 to 578 in 2024, with the most significant campaign from 29 May 2025 to 2 June 2025 affecting over 500 aircraft and hundreds of ships. Recent incidents near Baengnyeong Island in June 2025 targeted the 6th Marine Brigade during South Korea’s presidential transition, demonstrating that operations continue escalating regardless of political changes. Enhanced capabilities likely reflect Russian technology transfer following the June 2024 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, with North Korea adopting lessons from Russia’s electronic warfare tactics in Ukraine.
How has South Korea responded?
South Korea’s response centres on achieving strategic navigation independence through the Korean Positioning System. The $2.8 billion investment will deploy eight satellites by 2035, providing centimetre-level accuracy and reducing dependence on foreign systems. The programme builds on the Korea Augmentation Satellite System, which achieved operational certification in 2024.
Recognising immediate vulnerabilities, South Korea has accelerated and enhanced Long Range Navigation – eLoran – system development as a terrestrial backup. The eLoran system provides 20-metre accuracy using land-based transmitters resistant to satellite jamming, currently covering critical infrastructure including major ports, airports and shipping lanes. This approach draws lessons from the European experience, where the €20 billion Galileo constellation provides sophisticated anti-jamming capabilities but remains vulnerable to advanced systems, while Europe’s terrestrial eLoran backup collapsed due to cost-sharing disputes.
Alliance cooperation has intensified significantly. The April 2024 US-ROK space exercise simulated satellite communication interference, while trilateral cooperation expanded through the July 2024 Memorandum with Japan, creating information sharing mechanisms for electronic warfare threats. This mirrors successful European approaches, where the European Aviation Safety Agency’s partnership with industry established standardised reporting protocols within six months at minimal cost, proving more effective than expensive diplomatic initiatives.
The ROK 2024 defence budget increased by 4.5% to $45 billion, with substantial portions allocated to navigation security. However, current responses reveal strategic limitations. The 2035 KPS timeline leaves over a decade of GPS vulnerability that North Korea continues to exploit. Information sharing between military detection systems and civilian operators remains inadequate, with fishing crews reporting panic during the June 2025 incidents – a gap that European experience shows can be rapidly addressed through industry-led coordination.
What steps should South Korea take to build resilient networks?
Within six months, South Korea should establish standardised GPS jamming reporting protocols between the Korea Coast Guard, Korea Communications Commission and commercial operators, modelled on the EASA-IATA framework that reduced European response times from hours to minutes. The military should declassify real-time jamming location data for civilian use, addressing the critical information gap that has existed since June 2025.
This approach reflects lessons from European responses to Russian GPS jamming, where operations against Baltic states evolved from isolated incidents to persistent campaigns affecting over 350 commercial flights daily. The most effective European countermeasures emphasised industry-led cooperation over purely governmental responses, demonstrating how electronic warfare escalates from tactical harassment to strategic pressure without proper coordination.
The Lee administration should explore cooperation with EU and NATO partners facing similar Russian jamming threats. The Russia-North Korea technological relationship creates a shared threat matrix, strengthening the case for European cooperation. North Korea’s capabilities likely incorporate Russian technologies proven in Ukraine, where Moscow successfully disrupted military communications and civilian navigation systems. This technology transfer, formalised through the 2024 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, means European countermeasures against Russian systems may prove directly applicable to Korean Peninsula scenarios.
Information-sharing mechanisms linking Europe, Japan, and the United States could create a global network to track Russian-origin electronic warfare campaigns. The cooperation framework should focus on documenting patterns between Russian jamming operations in Ukraine and the Baltic versus North Korean tactics in the Yellow Sea, as both theatres likely employ similar Russian-developed technologies.
Bilateral partnerships with Estonia and Norway – both experienced in Russian electronic warfare – could provide immediate tactical knowledge transfer. Estonia’s documentation of 307 interference cases offers a proven methodology for building attribution capabilities, while Norway’s successful bilateral coordination with NATO during the 2018 Trident Juncture exercises demonstrates effective real-time response protocols against Russian jamming sources. The November 2024 EU-ROK Security and Defence Partnership provides an existing institutional framework for this cooperation.
South Korea should accelerate eLoran deployment from the current 3-station plan to 8 stations by 2027, requiring approximately $200 million additional investment but providing comprehensive backup coverage. This acceleration leverages unified national decision-making to avoid European coordination failures that collapsed their terrestrial backup system due to cost-sharing disputes.
The government should mandate multi-constellation receivers for all vessels over 500 tons and aircraft operating in Korean airspace by 2026, following Estonia’s successful regulatory model. This technical approach recognises that while satellite systems like Europe’s Galileo provide sophisticated capabilities, they remain vulnerable to advanced jamming systems, making terrestrial backups essential.
The June 2025 Baengnyeong Island incidents underscore that North Korea’s GPS jamming continues escalating despite political changes, reflecting Kim’s strategic emboldening through Russian support that reduces dependence on traditional diplomatic engagement. The deepening Russia-North Korea partnership represents a new phase where Russian electronic warfare technologies and methodologies enhance North Korean capabilities, creating natural opportunities for cooperation with European allies facing similar Russian systems in Ukraine and the Baltic region.
While KPS represents long-term strategic independence, immediate vulnerabilities require comprehensive information sharing, accelerated terrestrial backup systems and expanded international cooperation. European experience demonstrates that industry-led coordination and standardised reporting provide cost-effective protection while broader alliance frameworks build collective resilience. The technological linkage between Russian systems deployed across multiple theatres suggests coordinated international responses to electronic warfare may prove more effective than isolated national solutions.
__________
The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (CSDS) or the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
