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United States Technology

Galileo System To Include Jamming Capability 1026

Posted by Hemos from the wham-you-hear-nothing dept.
CharonX writes "The Galileo project, an european alternative to the US based (and controlled) GPS system, recieved a severe setback today. Under US pressure the EU has agreed to use transmission frequencies that could be easily disturbed or completely jammed by the US military. Since one of Galileo's main advantages had been being independent of goverment or military control, this is a severe setback. Read more here on Heise.de (German - ya might want to use the fish)" Some of the background on this had NATO being unhappy with some of the provisions of it as well - at the least military structure.
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Galileo System To Include Jamming Capability More

Galileo System To Include Jamming Capability

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  • Rough Translation by me :) (Score:5, Informative)

    by real-q ( 54985 ) * on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:15AM (#7598640) Homepage
    Galileo under US-Control

    The argument, the european satellite navigation system Gallileo will make the europeans independent from the USA, seems to tumble. Tagesschau [one of the most serious Newsmagazines in Germany] reports, US military forces may disturb or completely jam the Galileo signal without furhter notice, similar to what they are doing already with the GPS-Signals in critical times.

    But that is not enough for the americans. They demand to reduce the quality ofthe unencrypted Galileo signal, which the System sends in normal operation. If the USA will succeed with its demands, one of the main arguments for the european Navigationsystem - it's much higher precision compared to GPS - would fall. The final decision talks are set for january in Washington D.C.

    About four billion Euro will the Galilep project cost and it will start in the year 2008. About 30 satellites are required for the system. China and India also want to take part in financing the project with togehter 500 million euro.
    • Cats: All your Galileo are belong to US. :)

    • Re:Rough Translation by me :) (Score:5, Informative)

      by R2.0 ( 532027 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @02:33PM (#7600842)
      Funny, but the Reg. article (link in another post)gives a distinctly different impression on the "jamming" issue, to wit:

      The US and EU are currently coordinating frequencies so that the EU system doesn't interfere with the US system - and vice-versa. As a side effect, the EU system will be susceptible to jamming ONLY in that, being on a different freq., the US could jam Gallileo and not GPS.

      Well, guess what - that implies that the EU could jam GPS and not Gallileo! Oh yeah, and even if Gallileo is on the same freq. as GPS, it could STILL be jammed - it would just take out both systems. AND accuracy would still suck due to interference.

      As for the "demand" that the US military be able to degrade Gallileo's accuracy, given the breathless nature of the balance of the article, it seems the author may have gotten a little carried away.

      Besides which, why can't the EU "just say no"?

      • Re:Rough Translation by me :) (Score:4, Interesting)

        by ultranova ( 717540 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @03:59PM (#7601782)
        Besides which, why can't the EU "just say no"?

        Because the USA has a bigger army and is actively trying to stop us from making a common army of our own. I have to admit, I hate the idea of losing our national independence, but if we have to lose it, I'd rather lose it to Bryssel than to Washington... Meaning, I'm starting to wonder if the idea of making EU a real nation actually has merit...

  • RADAR TECH.: I'm having trouble with the radar, sir.

    HELMET: What's wrong with it?

    RADAR TECH.: I've lost the bleeps, I've the lost the sweeps, and I've lost the creeps.

    HELMET: The what?

    SANDURZ: The what?

    HELMET: And the what?

    RADAR TECH.: You know. The bleeps, the sweeps, and the creeps.

    HELMET: That's not all he's lost.

    RADAR TECH.: Sir. The radar, sir. It appears to be... jammed.

    HELMET: Jammed? Raspberry. There's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry. Lone Starr!

  • Unbelievable... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mOoZik ( 698544 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:17AM (#7598654) Homepage
    This defeats the whole point of an independent system. The U.S. may be the superpower at this time, but this doesn't mean they should have such a strong hand in these decisions. If such a system eventually gets built and many years down the road the U.S. decides to invade a country which uses the Galileo system for its weaponry, what's to keep the U.S. from jamming and disabling their systems for a clean sweep? In a word, this is unfair. Other states should have the capabilities which the United States takes for granted. Very disappointed in my country.

    • Re:Unbelievable... (Score:4, Informative)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:20AM (#7598685) Homepage Journal
      i wonder though.. the financing of this has to shake somewhat now though, since the whole point of making the system kind of falls now, i don't see any point why china for example would like to contribute at all now.

      • It's interesting that you take notice of the financing for this project. I sometimes wonder if this isn't just another attempt by the U.S. to undermine the value of the EURO against the US Dollar. They're doing it in Iraq with OPEC, and they see no reason to stop there.

    • Re:Unbelievable... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dun Malg ( 230075 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:24AM (#7598725) Homepage
      down the road the U.S. decides to invade a country which uses the Galileo system for its weaponry, what's to keep the U.S. from jamming and disabling their systems for a clean sweep? In a word, this is unfair.

      You're worried about one side having an unfair advantage in war? That's just weird, man. There's no "fairness" in war. The US dictating to the EU how their nav sats should work, that's pretty lame. But the EU will be even more lame if they knuckle under.

      • Re:Unbelievable... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Rich0 ( 548339 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:44AM (#7598934) Homepage
        Basically, the US is pointing out that the Galileo system is a dual-use civilian/military system. If it is used by an enemy the US might be forced to take it out. Instead, they're giving the EU the option to design it to play nice so that there are more options in a war than just shooting it down or letting the enemy use it.

        Basically, the USA wants to make sure that only first-world nations can fight using high-tech weapons. They don't want two-bit dictators to have the same capabilities. If the chinese launch their own system the USA will live with it, since the USA could always shoot it down if they got into a big war with China. You can bet the Chinese would be looking to shoot down the GPS system if they got into a war.

        There would actually be a long-term use for a navigation system which is completely low-resolution. In theory nobody would bother to shoot it down, and it might be the only system that survives a big war.

        Galileo is analagous to a contractor who sells ultra-modern naval cruisers to anyone willing to pay for them. In a war, everybody would be looking to blow them up. Actually, even in peace there would be a large effort to control their activities. Big countries spend a lot of money to get a technological advantage in war - selling products to anyone willing to pay for them levels the playing field.

        • Re:Unbelievable... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @01:03PM (#7599833) Homepage Journal
          Basically, the US is pointing out that the Galileo system is a dual-use civilian/military system. If it is used by an enemy the US might be forced to take it out. Instead, they're giving the EU the option to design it to play nice so that there are more options in a war than just shooting it down or letting the enemy use it.

          Fair enough, but being a non-USA solution, the keys to reducing its effectivness should not be in the hand of the US miltary. Rather, it should be in the hand of the countries who a responsible for putting together the Galileo system. The only way to have balance of power is two have sides, since otherwise there is no balance.

          Then again the country that is likely to have the advantage, in a future war, is the one that is capable of working in the absence of electronic devices. You take one neutron bomb or a system capable of multifrequency jamming, and all electronic communications are worthless.

        • Re:Unbelievable... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by penguin7of9 ( 697383 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @01:54PM (#7600418)
          Basically, the USA wants to make sure that only first-world nations can fight using high-tech weapons. They don't want two-bit dictators to have the same capabilities.

          No, the USA wants to make sure that the USA has control over all high tech weapons. With the current fascist and religious fundementalist currents in US politics, this is something that should have the world really worried.

          Instead, they're giving the EU the option to design it to play nice so that there are more options in a war than just shooting it down or letting the enemy use it.

          Then the EU should have the option of disabling the system at the EU's choice. If the US decides to shoot the system down against the wishes of the EU, that would be an act of war by the US against the EU. Shooting down another democracy's satellites for domestic US political or military purposes and against the wishes of that democracy would be a useful indicator of when the US really has crossed the line to being a rogue nation.

        • Re:Unbelievable... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Lars T. ( 470328 )
          Galileo is analagous to a contractor who sells ultra-modern naval cruisers to anyone willing to pay for them. In a war, everybody would be looking to blow them up. Actually, even in peace there would be a large effort to control their activities. Big countries spend a lot of money to get a technological advantage in war - selling products to anyone willing to pay for them levels the playing field.

          And the USA is analagous to a monopolistic software corporation that keeps bitching and moaning and trying t

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Unbelievable... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by praksys ( 246544 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:30AM (#7598785)
      If such a system eventually gets built and many years down the road the U.S. decides to invade a country which uses the Galileo system for its weaponry, what's to keep the U.S. from jamming and disabling their systems for a clean sweep?

      What's to keep them from just trashing the whole system [af.mil]? The alternative to jamming is destruction.
  • Here [theregister.co.uk]

    John.

  • What can I say... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by WetCat ( 558132 )
    Use GLONASS instead...
    Or a combination of GLONASS & GPS
  • ...
    Since one of Galileo's main advantages had been being independent of goverment or military control, this is a severe setback.
    ...

    I think the US Gov't & Military (and her allies, too, probably) consider this a great advancement of their goals. So...I guess it all depends on your point-of-view! ;)

    -buf

  • Big shame (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sosume ( 680416 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:20AM (#7598686) Journal
    Why do I still pay taxes? I could as well pay directly to the US Government since they control our defense. Bah. Shame on the EU for letting the US walk straight over them!!!! .. what if the US get caught by a coup d'etat? Not as unlikely as many think.. they will immediately control the EU as well.

    A dark day for Europe, this is.

    • Re:Big shame (Score:3, Informative)

      by Performer Guy ( 69820 )
      Sigh, nobody has walked over anyone. Geeze keep your hair on. You don't even know the facts beyone some rant on /. typical, get all hot & bothered over propaganda.

  • This is a good thing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by shed ( 68365 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:21AM (#7598688)
    I'm sure this sounds like flame bait, but as someone has already pointed out the article itself constitutes a tasty treat for the consumption of flame.

    The question here is why would you not want the military to be able to jam a GPS system? I'd like to see some cogent thought in that direction, rather than froth and hand wringing without substantiation.

    Let me give one positive example. North Korea launches a galileo guided missle toward new york. The US military disables it. Any others?
    • Any others?

      Sure the US jams Galileo because, some European company using Galileo competes with some US company using GPS
    • The more accurate question is "why would you not want a *foreign* military to be able to jam a GPS system?"

      Its all good and well assuming the EU and USA have similar goals and direction. But that is not always going to happen. There will be times in the future when Europe and America don't see eye to eye on things, and then the EU will be regretting decisions like this, and America will be laughing its head off.

    • Re:This is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by arkanes ( 521690 ) <<arkanes> <at> <gmail.com>> on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:27AM (#7598762) Homepage
      Your argument is easily extended to allowing the military complete control over any and all aspects of life. Care to provide anything a bit more substantial?

      I'll give you a start: North Korea launches an inertially guided missile toward New York.

      I'll take a step farther and provide a realistic answer to your flaimbait: The "jamming" they're talking about doesn't effect 1 reciever. It affects an entire area, or, in the case of GPS, it affects the entire system. There's a real use for an accurate positioning system that can't be disabled on a whim - this is a real issue in the US. People want to use GPS for accurate positioning, but you can't rely on it. There was a great deal of concern during the invaision of Afghanistan (and again during the invasion of Iraq) over this, because there were systems in place that relied on accurate GPS (although they shouldn't) and they would fail if it was disabled. A civilian positioning sytem outside of military control wouldn't have this drawback.

    • US Military, not EU (Score:5, Insightful)

      by arevos ( 659374 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:28AM (#7598764) Homepage
      Yes, except this would give the US Military capabilities over Gallieo, not the EU. Would the US agree to something similar? If the US should be able to jam the EU system, then surely it's perfectly fair for the EU to jam the US GPS system.

      I wouldn't mind this provision as much, if the EU had the same rights as the US in this matter. In short, if the US Military wants the ability to shut off the EU's feed, then the EU member countries should have the ability to shut off the US feed. And how likely is it that the US would give France or Germany the ability to arbietarily decide to block their system?

    • Re:This is a good thing (Score:3, Interesting)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )
      why would europeans(such as me) want to have a seperate system from the usa controlled satellite navigation system? i wonder why indeed! look, there's not too many military superpowers out there that go on invading foreign soil regularly, buying systems they have control over(killswitches if you may) to defend against them doesn't have much point(and while the world situation might change in few years the equipment will be used for decades, what if there's a coup in usa and they just start blatantly extorti

  • a stupid question... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JeanBaptiste ( 537955 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:22AM (#7598698)
    >the EU has agreed to use transmission frequencies that could be easily disturbed or completely jammed by the US military

    if they wanted, wouldnt the US military be able to jam them pretty easily no matter what frequencies they used?
    • >>if they wanted, wouldnt the US military be able to jam them pretty easily no matter what frequencies they used?

      no, because if you RTFA you'll notice that originally Galileo was to broadcast on the same frequency as GPS. That would mean that the US could not jam Galileo without also jamming GPS. By persuading Galileo to use a different frequency, the US will be able to jam its systems without affecting Galileo. (Though presumably it also means that people using Galileo will be able to jam GPS as wel

    • That depends on what you mean by "jam" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DG ( 989 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:59AM (#7599088) Homepage Journal
      If what you mean by "jam" is "make service unavailable", yes, I would expect anybody with access to a powerful enough transmitter should be able to wash out GPS signals; at least locally.

      I would wonder about the vulnerability of such a jammer to an antiradiation missile... but technically it's possible.

      The downside of course is that by doing so, you render all your GPS recievers inoperative as well.

      What you really want to do in a GPS context is something called "selective availibility" where you remove or downgrade the service from unauthenticated "public" receivers. Your stuff still works to an 8-figure grid, but the bad guys are lucky to get 4 figures, and it jumps around a lot.

      In order to do that though, you need access to the source signal. You can't really do that from a "jammer".

      The funny thing is... I'm not sure how important selective availibility is from a national security perspective.

      Back in my recce days, I was required to know where I was at all times to 6 figures (100 metres) using nothing more than a map, a compass, and an odometer/pace count. It takes a lot of practice, but once you learn how, you can locate your position very accurately using terrain features and keeping accurate track of your route.

      Same deal in an urban environment. "Meet me at the corner of Peel & St Catherines" is accurate to 100 metres. "Meet me at the nortwest corner of Peel & St Catherines" is accurate to about 5 metres.

      Some environments can be a little more tricky - open desert, fog, out-of-date maps - but as long as you're talking about humans, accurate GPS is a "nice to have" not a "must have or cannot function"

      The exception is GPS-guided precision munitions... which are not exactly common items amongst the bad guys.

      If you look at where the UN and/or the US have gone in the last little while... The preferred weapon in Rwanda was a machete. Somallia, the AK-47. Bosnia/Serbia, the AK47, the land mine, and at least one Panther tank. Afganistan, AK47 and the RPG. Iraq, AK47, AK74, and the RPG.

      Most of the bad guys are fighting with technology that was state of the art in 1945 - and even then, there's at least one 1945-era technology that hasn't made it into the hands of more than a few countries.

      Terrorists? McVey used a truck full of fertillizer. The various groups blowing themselves up in the Middle East also use various chemical explosives. The big Al-Quaida innovation was to crash a big plane full of jet fuel into a building - and that'll never work again, because they changed the "how best to survive a hijacking" procedure so quickly that one of the planes IN THE AIR AT THE TIME didn't play ball.

      In terms of places to spend political capital, this seems like a bad investment. Piss off your friends, do little harm to your enemies, and don't increase actual security by any measurable amount.

      Mind you, I just described the invasion of Iraq too....

      DG

  • Question?? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by TheDredd ( 529506 )
    Would that mean you would be better of using GPS, because the US would be jamming Galileo out into Oblivion, because it competes with GPS???

    I don't see the point of Galileo anymore if it falls under US control, we already have that

  • Agreed to it? The Reg seems to say different. (Score:5, Informative)

    by arevos ( 659374 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:23AM (#7598709) Homepage
    The Register [theregister.co.uk] just says that: "Talks are underway between the US and the European Union". Nothing yet seems to be agreed or finalised.

    Do we know if anything definite has been decided yet? I can't see the EU caving in that easily (though I may be wrong).
    • Galileo offers two services: one free, unencrypted service and one encrypted service that you have to pay for (higher precision, higher QoS). As far as I understand it, the encrypted signal can be jammed - this is what the Heise article is about. The talks (in January in Washington) are about jamming the unencrypted signal, according to Heise.

  • Surprising (Score:4, Funny)

    by sevensharpnine ( 231974 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:24AM (#7598720)
    I knew the Galileo project would run into trouble, but I honestly thought it would be the Catholics causing it.

  • Project should be cancelled (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jschrod ( 172610 ) <jschrod@acmFORTRAN.org minus language> on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:29AM (#7598772) Homepage
    If the report is true, the whole project should be cancelled ASAP.

    There is no reason why my tax money should be used to create a second system that is equal to an already available and (within the spec limits) working one. It's only sensible to spend the money if there is a big enough advantage.

  • Naivity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:29AM (#7598774)
    Let us not be naive; there was no other real reason for Galileo than EU money into EU industry, the massively underestimated budgets (30 billion Euros only) is a big hint on that. Just launching the 24 satellites (and that assumes NO losses) would eat up about that amount of money, and then you have ground stations, staff, development and, best of all, maintenence.

    The whole thing has been presentet as being too good to be true, and guess what: it should then not be assumed to be true. The US has developend, evolved and maintained the GPS for about 30 years and it has cost a bit more than what EU has guesstimated.

    Secondly it was always rather hazy just who should control Galileo and just what limitations should be in place; it was always this unclear "someone" in "the approporitate commission", which should alert anyone who didn't fall out of a tree yesterday of big corruption ahead. Those still in their diapers might be surprised of jamming capability; the rest of us should ne be.

    The French have always been a big proponent but then again they have this massive penis envy with respect to the US.

    • Re:Naivity (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @12:58PM (#7599771)
      The French have always been a big proponent but then again they have this massive penis envy with respect to the US.

      It has nothing to do with penis envy. As a European, I want our economy to be strong and united, and our defense force strong and not reliant on a third party. This is not because I envy the USA. It is because I live in Europe, and even if the USA says that it'll propect us in the case of a third world war, I'd much rather the EU had it's own capabilities because the USA has shown itself to be increasingly unilateral in its actions.

      Some in the current administration in the USA have even been questioning the "loyalty" of the UK recently, and if the administration is capable of that then it's capable of stabbling its 'lesser' friends in the back.

      Sorry, but that's just the way it feels to me at the moment. Hopefully something will change in the near future and we'll be able to feel that the USA is a great and friendly power again.

  • I wonder (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tempestdata ( 457317 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:29AM (#7598775)
    I wonder if the EU (or any other political/military entity) has the ability to jam US military GPS signals. If that is the case, then this only means that a balance of force exists. ie. I'll jam yours if you jam mine.

    However, if the US GPS system is difficult (or impossible?) to jam.. then this is definitely a bad idea. However, the US is only doing what any bully would do. Make sure no one ever gets in a position where it wont have to take his/her/its bullying. (yes mod me down for calling the US a bully.. but frankly when the article says the US 'pressured' the EU into changing the systems specs, it really means 'bullied')

    Does anyone know if the US system can be jammed? Is china working on a similar system?
    • Any signal can be jammed. Remember the flap when it was found out that Russian GPS jammers had been sold to Iraq?

      The real issue isn't jamming but in scrambling/encoding. The idea is that you keep the system functioning but only for your benefit and not for the other side. A blanket jamming signal would deprive everyone of the system. An encrypted signal would mean that only the people with the right keys get the accurate information.

  • manual translation of Heise article (Score:5, Informative)

    by Apogee ( 134480 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @11:30AM (#7598786)
    Galileo under US control

    The previous argument that the European satellite navigation system Galileo would make Europeans independent from the US apparently starts to falter. As reported by the Tagesschau [tagesschau.de] (German TV news, trans. note), US armed forces can jam or artificially deteriorate the Galileo signal without consulting the Europeans, just as it is being done nowadays with GPS signals in times of crises.

    But that is not sufficient for the Americans. They further demand that the unencrypted Galileo signal, which the system broadcasts during normal operation, should be artificially degraded or dampened, as well. Should the US come through with this demand, one of the major arguments for the European navigation system would fall, namely its higher precision compared to GPS. The pivotal round of negotiations for this is planned to take place in the American capital, Washington DC, in January.

    The Galileo project is estimated to cost four billion Euro, and is supposed to become operational in 2008. Approximately 30 satellites are needed for the system. Recently, China and India have agreed to participate in the financing of the project with 500 million Euro combined. (uma/c't)

  • Sounds like a movie (Score:3, Funny)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @12:01PM (#7599110)
    When I first saw the title I thought it was a like a bad horror film.

    (Announcer voiceover)
    They left it for dead on Jupiter.
    But now it has come back from the shadows to claim revenge!

    (Pan to radar control room)
    Radar Tech: Sir, all our systems are jammed!
    (Shots of satellites exploding)


    (Announcer voiceover)
    Coming this fall: Galileo's Revenge: When deep space probes go bad.

  • EU is a military nonentity (Score:4, Insightful)

    by imnoteddy ( 568836 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @12:16PM (#7599289)
    Sigh. I'm a US citizen who hated the Iraq war - we did it because we could, not because it was right.

    But the EU couldn't have done it even if they had to. For their own internal social/political reasons EU countries spend much less on their military budgets than the US. While I respect their reasons, this leaves them militarily impotent. The EU didn't go into the former Yugoslavia until the US went in - and this was in the EU's neighborhood.

    So if the EU backs down to the US on military matters such as Galileo it is the result their own decisions. The EU can do very little with the armed forces that they have, and they are unlikely for political reasons to change any time soon.

  • Related news item (Score:3, Informative)

    by andy1307 ( 656570 ) * on Monday December 01, 2003 @12:17PM (#7599306)
    India announces participation in Europe's Galileo satellite project [eubusiness.com]

    Indian officials said New Delhi would soon pick up a 350-million-dollar (300-million-euro) stake in the 3.2 billion euro European satellite project, meant to rival the Global Positioning System run by the US Defence Department.

  • Diplomacy (Score:5, Funny)

    by Phantasmo ( 586700 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @12:18PM (#7599310)
    US: Change Galileo so we can jam it.

    EU: ... and?

    US: And what?

    EU: And what concession will you make?

    US: If you comply with our request, the United States government is prepared to not nuke your ass.

    EU: I say, that's very generous. We accept.

  • (more) Comprehesible Explanation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by daniel.probst ( 535140 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @12:18PM (#7599314)
    Obviously most advanced tech countries can jam GPS signals. The EU can jam US GPS and and the US can jam Galileo. The point of dissent is the overlap of military frequencies. The EU wants to have their military frequency to partly overlap the US frequency so that the US cannot jam Galileo without degrading their own military signal quality (and vice versa). The US obviously would like to be able to jam Galileo without degrading their own military performance hence the request to move the Galileo military frequency. Note that both India and China are participating financially at Galileo. China would certainly not pay a cent for a system under US control.

  • Darn it! (Score:3, Funny)

    by yoha ( 249396 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @12:45PM (#7599618)
    And I was just going to invade and take over the United States using the Galileo system. Looks like I'll have to use something else. North Star, perhaps, we're not jamming that are we?

  • Um - isn't this a good thing? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ignorant Aardvark ( 632408 ) <cydeweys.gmail@com> on Monday December 01, 2003 @12:49PM (#7599654) Homepage Journal
    GPS/Galileo is a very powerful thing. It's not just useful in consumer electronic toys, but in real warfare situations. As it is now GPS is run by the U.S. military, so if someone tries to use it against us to guide their bombs we can easily screw over their guidance systems. Galileo, without these kinds of provisions, would've allowed the terrorists an alternative guidance method not easily jammable by us. These provisions are in the best interests of the U.S. - and also Europe, as they are our ally, and would also be susceptible to un-jammable Galileo-guided smart weapons. This is not a matter of free speech or freedom - this is about national defense, and the more control we have in matters of national defense, the better.

  • How to make enemies and lose allies. (Score:3, Informative)

    by theolein ( 316044 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @01:22PM (#7600059) Journal
    I just read the heise.de forums and the overall tone of the posters is disbelief and viscious anger. On the one hand they're angry that their politicians could bend over so easily and on the other they're hopping mad that the Americans would apply so much political pressure to do this.

    I'll say this for you anks. There is literally no other country on earth that makes enemies and loses allies as well as your country is presently doing.

  • If you can't beat 'em, "join" 'em (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) * on Monday December 01, 2003 @01:30PM (#7600137)
    The way I figure, the E.U. is going to take some cues from the U.S. in dealings such as this. They'll nod amiably, appear to agree to the terms, then do whatever the hell they want, and if they're caught, they'll find some insignificant person within the organization and say it was his fault.

  • What about this idea... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chainsaw ( 2302 ) <jens...backman@@@gmail...com> on Monday December 01, 2003 @01:30PM (#7600144) Homepage
    Why can't the Galileo frequencies be placed extremely near or inside the same frequency spectrum as GPS uses? The US will be free to jam Galileo all they want, but they will give up GPS precision(sp?) at the same time. It's a lose/lose situation, and everybody is happy.

    Fuckers.

  • Despite the present ill feeling between the US and Europe, let's not forget some basic facts.

    a) It is the US Navy that makes world trade possible. American domination of the deep blue sea is ultimately the engine driving containerships everywhere.

    We take free trade for granted but really free trade and free travel across the oceans is because the oceans are essentially American, and, under American rule, travel across the oceans are not taxed or restricted.

    There's no guarantee that a patchwork of powers would do anything different or better. Certainly the Europeans historically were a lot worse.

    Maybe the British could share with the Germans the same way they did in 1870-1914.

    b) It is the US Army and US Air Force that provide stability in Europe. What happens in Europe if the US pulls out? How long do France and Germany remain cozy? Or, better still, what is Europe like if Germany has the bomb, or what about Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, etc?

    Yes, the Europeans may not like Americans that much, and, Americans may not like the Europeans that much, but, fundamentally, the reasons and advantages of maintaining the transatlantic alliance remain sound.

    Ultimately, the rising muslim and anti-semetic populations in europe, coupled with an overall decline in population, will demand an american break from that old continent.

    But, until that time, NATO stands.

  • Question (Score:4, Funny)

    by lone_marauder ( 642787 ) on Monday December 01, 2003 @02:08PM (#7600588)
    Didn't RTFA because I don't read German and don't trust the fish.

    Does this mean that the US can block the civilian variant of Galileo, allowing EU military to still use the system unimpeded on an encrypted channel? If so, then I'm cool with it.

    Even if not, I'm sure the conversation went something like this:

    US We want SA over your system.

    EU Blow it out your ass.

    US We'll shoot down all your sattellites.

    EU OK.

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