Someone is interfering with aviation in the Baltic Sea region, jamming and manipulating the GPS signals that allow aircraft (and their pilots) to know where they and other planes are. Such interference is skyrocketing in other geopolitical hot spots, too. And every country should be concerned, because GPS interference affects aircraft far outside the immediate hot spots. With this insidious harm against civilian aviation proliferating, no one is safe.

These days, flying above Sweden, Finland, Poland, and the Baltic states is not what it used to be. Sure, you arrive at your destination, and you don’t notice anything unusual, but for pilots, a great deal has changed.

Someone is interfering with aviation in the Baltic Sea region, jamming and manipulating the GPS signals that allow aircraft (and their pilots) to know where they and other planes are. Such interference is skyrocketing in other geopolitical hot spots, too. And every country should be concerned, because GPS interference affects aircraft far outside the immediate hot spots. With this insidious harm against civilian aviation proliferating, no one is safe.

These days, flying above Sweden, Finland, Poland, and the Baltic states is not what it used to be. Sure, you arrive at your destination, and you don’t notice anything unusual, but for pilots, a great deal has changed.

During the first four months of this year, Sweden alone registered nearly 123,000 incidents of GPS jamming (where GPS signals are blocked) or spoofing (where the signals are manipulated to show aircraft in false locations). In April, more than one-quarter of flights in Swedish airspace were affected by GPS interference; the share was similar in the other countries in the region. In some parts of Sweden, interference affected nearly half of all flights.

Such interference also affects ships, which—just like........

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