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Galileo System To Include Jamming Capability
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.
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.
"I know Gentoo" - "Show me"
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!
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.
A blog like any other.
Here
John.
Use GLONASS instead...
Or a combination of GLONASS & GPS
Everything should be 'fair' huh? Christ....
Blar.
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
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.
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?
My cat can eat a whole watermelon
...a lost opportunity to have an independent European defence policy.
>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?
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
The Register 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).
could do a lot 'if they wanted to'. They could nuke Europe if they wanted to - it's not could to happen, but they could.
There is a very large difference between the EU allowing the US to jam and the US jamming against the wishes of the EU. We in Europe are getting quite uppity with the US, especially their foreign policy and breaking our new toy would not be looked on kindly.
The EU collectively has a lot of clout with the US, for example the import tariffs imposed on steel imported to the US are going to be removed due to pressure brought by Europe. The dollar is currently at an all time low against the Euro and the lower it gets the more influence we have.
I knew the Galileo project would run into trouble, but I honestly thought it would be the Catholics causing it.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
is what frequencies can't be jammed by the Military? Is there some secret form of Maxwell's equations I don't know about?
I think the US Gov't & Military (and her allies, too, probably) consider this a great advancement of their goals.
Most allies of the USA are taking part in the Galileo system!
But also most allies of the USA are getting scared of the military control of the USA.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
The US could shoot the entire system out of the skies if it wanted. That doesn't make it responsible, amenable to good relations or the best policy.
You'd hope that democratic nations would behave in a sensible way towards each other.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If GPS uses radio signals, and radio signals, by nature, are all inherently jammable... how does one possibly make it MORE or LESS jammable? It is what it is, and that is jammable. Now, reducing accuracy is something entirely different.
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?
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.
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
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.
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?
- Tempestdata
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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 (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)
Conservatives work on fear, yet Dems are the ones trying to scare seniors by telling them we'll destroy their SS. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaah.
Precisely why the EU compromised on the matter.
If they put the system in orbit and the only way to deny its use to an enemy were to shoot it out of the skies, then that would be what would happen.
If you can selectively degrade it simply by flipping a switch that give the EU a bargaining chip in negotiations with the US (ie, we can make this whole galileo-jamming bit real easy for you if you only change policy xyz).
If you can jam it from the ground then at least the US has a more painful solution if it wants to go it alone which does necessitate shotting the satelites out of the sky.
Basically, by giving in to the USA, they can still use the system for the civilian purposes it was designed for, but at the same time they retain the option of denying it to an enemy later.
If someone figured out a way of broadcasting gravity waves and recieving them without annoncing it in a sci journel, then they would be able to send signals without any fear of jamming or eavesdropping. Ofcource if you did publish, you'd get a nobel prize.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
but it goes against US law as well. This is a decidedly monopolistic move, one that will weaken a rival solution. Didn't we just have a big case of Microsoft doing the same thing?!? And anyways, the system is being developed outside of American control or influence. If this was a corporate system, we would not have the right to change it, so why should we be able to interfere now? This administration really gets on my nerves.
I never quite understood the fascination with GPS devices; unless I'm lost in a trackless wilderness or adrift at sea, I likely know where I am. (And yes, I own a GPS unit, for geocaching games.)
At least they haven't found a way to jam a compass or sextant...
All about me
... for the US jam industry. They can jam anything with that stuff.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
it probably will... trust me ;-)
Of course we pressured them to make their system weak!
what blows my mind is that countries actually give in and do this!
I think these statements summarize the whole point, doesn't it ? After all, if the other countries do give in, the USA is already in control.
morcego
First off, you focus on the US, but the fact of the matter is anyone - from anarchists to terrorists to civil disobedience organizers - can choose to jam BOTH the GPS system AND Galileo.
Then you mention how much clout the EU has with the US now. Unfortunately, all commodities are still traded in US dollars and probably will be for the foreseeable future. The high Euro has also significantly hurt European exports and all of this in the midst of increasing European deficits contrary to EU constitution by Germany and France recently. All this in the midst of rampant inflation like 30% increases in the cost of damned table salt per year in Greece last year, for example, and the UK being resistant to joining and giving up the pound. In fact, Europe's economy is teetering on stagflation at this point. The higher the Euro becomes the more expensive European exports become and the more European countries get hurt.
The article is pretty heavily laden with propaganda, and your post skims over too many details. However, just like the meteoric rise of the Nasdaq and Dow three years ago, the meteoric rise of the Euro of over 20% in the span of eight to ten months indicates something - volatility, not strength.
It'll only keep you from killing your buddy, shooting 'Coalition' troops and removing the fog of war for the commanders on the field and back in camp.
Geocaching is great, but it ain't got nothing on the integrated systems in place for soldiers on the ground.
In related news, the EU is beginning to scale back their plans for the EU NATO competitor. They probably are starting to look at the price tag and, while it is tempting to try to emulate America's build up, their economies are even more sickly then ours and its not looking so smart anymore.
but US is running at a defecit i.e. is importing more than they're exporting. Dollar is slipping against the Euro, the same dollar is bringing in less and less 'product'. You could increase your deficit and bring more stuff in which is ultimately going to end in disaster as more and more dollars bring in less and less, or reverse the deficit by exporting more product (the sensible option). To export your products you need people to buy them, you don't want your main customer (Europe) imposing great big embargoes, restrictive taxes etc. That's why you should want to keep them happy. The EU knows it's in a strong position and (if we ever stop bickering with each other) will use this.
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.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
If it isn't any more accurate than the US system?
If it can be disabled by the US, just like the US system?
In effect, they will be using a US-controlled system.
So it would be more in their national interest to put up their own. Even if it costs more.
Any signal from a satellite is going to be very weak -- the satallite is a long way away, our atmosphere attenuates the signals somewhat (which does depend on the frequency), and they cannot transmit with very much power to begin with (because they have limited solar power, and cooling is difficult to do in space.)
Any signal from a satellite can be jammed from the ground just by pumping a few thousand (or more) watts into that frequency in the general vicinity. This noise would overwhelm the weak signal from the satellite and drown it out.
It's also quite possible that any yahoo with a big dish and a few thousand watts to spare could jam an entire satellite by aiming the dish at the satellite and transmitting a few thousand watts on the the frequencies the satellite uses (especially the uplink frequencies.) This has happened recently and made worldwide news.
(Of course, I imagine that the only reason they never caught (?) the person (organization? government?) responsible is that they were in Cuba. This sort of jamming isn't trivial to track down, but I'm sure that it wouldn't take long.)
I'd expect GPS-type satellites to be more resistant to this sort of jamming (because I imagine that they don't really use uplink frequencies at all) but one could certainly jam the control frequencies (which may or may not be needed often) and one could probably interfere with the transmitter by flooding it with noise on it's own channel (I guess ... my experience with RF electronics is limited.)
I doubt that the government would flood the satellite with noise, however -- I suspect they'd just use equipment to jam the local area.
Without the ability of the United States to tell us what to do in case of emergency, there's no telling what trouble we might get into. If that's what it takes to keep money in the hands of the corporate elite, so be it. Don't blame the US, blame the terrorists.
Well said. The whole thing about jamming seems to stem from it using different frequencies than the U.S. system, it's a non story dressed up as anti-U.S. propaganda. I'm more concerned with the degradation issue for everyday use. I still don't see the significant strategic value of those extra few meters but I do see it undermining many peaceful civilian applications. Let's hope that Galileo supports the maximum accuracy for everyday civilian use. If it doean't there's very little point.
Galileo are belong to US.
Not even Bush would be crazy enough to start a war against the EU. Shooting down EU satellites would be a declaration of war. Looking how much problems the mighty US army has with a 3rd world country like Iraq they should hessiate before making war with strong NATO allies. Of course, one could always nuke the EU, but both France and UK have nuclear weapons of their own.
This is a compromise like all compromises, it probably serves some purpose for both parties. The US military like to believe that they can do what they want and the EU don't like the thought that rouge states can take advantage of their technology.
On the other hand, it is not for sure that this is a final deal, since there are strong forces in the EU who do not want rogue elements in Pentagon or unpredictable presidents to control the safty of air traffic to mention one reason to have a trusted Galileo.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
it's only the EU that's not appreciating the US lurching about planet. The EU is the largest single financial entity the US has to deal with however so obviously can exert more muscle than another single country.
Sod it. Blame Canada.
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
and the US has planned invasions on at least one ally.. with friends like that, who needs enemies?
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I can't imagine America imposing its will on European nations and letting the US military push other countries around just out of convenience and without much regard for individual liberties or national sovereignty -- that's just not like the US that I know and love. Oh, wait a minute, it has been for the past 3 years now. D'oh!
I am looking outside the window.
What I'm wondering is WHO in the EU would even consider allowing the US that kind of access.
I understand the US wanting it.
I understand the US bringing whatever political/economic pressure it can to get its way.
I do NOT understand anyone in the EU even considering allowing this.
This is the US. We'll demand just about anything in the name of "security".
The EU needs to stand up for its own national interests and say "No".
As another poster said, IF the US wanted, they could nuke Europe. Of course, IF Europe saw the US as that kind of threat, they COULD switch from producing cruise ships, fancy automobiles and high-end electronic schnick-schnacks to producing fancy weapons instead. The sole reason Europe spends just a fraction of the money the US does on defence R&D is because it normally doesn't have to. If it felt it HAD to, the US wouldn't have much of a leg up on Europe anymore in that respect. As European nations have demonstrated plentifully in other areas (e.g. healthcare, public works), they are quite capable of appropriating gargantuan amounts of money, which could then be channelled to more destructive uses.
If Europe started a massive military R&D push today, they could take advantage of the huge advances and cost reductions in digital electronics since the 70s and 80s, when a lot of the current US stock of weapons was developed. Cruise and intelligent anti-aircraft missiles with current technology could be produced for a fraction of the cost, you wouldn't event need equivalents to the F-22 or anything. Stealth is only as good as the next generation of DSP algorithms and chips. The principles of mass production aren't quite the novelty they were during WWII when the US were the only ones churning out hardware on a huge scale.
This is all assuming all-out, take-no-prisoners war between Western nations, which given the economic realities of today is highly unlikely, almost ridiculous--as is the OP'ers flamboyant and boisterous statement.
What is unbelievable is that the US military degrades the US GPS in time of war so that the enemy can't use the open signal in their war efforts. What would be irretrievably stupid is to not negotiate similar safeguards in comparable systems. Yes, some may think that sucks, but the alternative is worse.
on at least one ally
You are right. The Netherlands. Sounds crazy, but true. And when I said allies, I did not mean friends!
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
At the begining of the current Iraq war, the US feared GPS jamming by inexpensive, widely available devices. Much of the military uses GPS. However, ground-based jamming is rather localized compared to the space-based GPS platform. You basically need jamming in space, which the US already has.
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
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
EU has agreed to use transmission frequencies that could be easily disturbed or completely jammed by the US military
I am a little bit confused. Presumably the range of frequencies suitable for GPS application isn't all that wide. Why is it that some frequencies are easily jammable, and others, similar, are not?
Or is it a question of the US already having hardware in place to jam certain frequencies and it's basically a question of saving money for the US military (that is, not needing to buy/install hardware for Galileo jamming)?
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
GPS jammers are not exactly news. The EU or anyone else for that matter can already jam GPS (or any other frequency in the EM Spectrum).
If it's in the EM spectrum, it can be jammed.
for example the import tariffs imposed on steel imported to the US are going to be removed due to pressure brought by Europe.
Actually most of the pressure has come from primary swing vote states in the US where industries employing steel are prominant. There has been a huge backlash in the industrial Midwest (Michigan, Ohio) by small and large companies that have had to cut employees or fold because the price of metal has gone up. It seems Bush forgot the cardinal rule for global economy: penalize the local few (US steel makers) for the benefit of the majority (consumers, steel end users). Tariffs penalize everybody.
And since the economy is #1 on the Presidential circuit, this hasn't floated too well. The Democrats have rolled out ads pointing out the fact that GWB is the first president since Herbert Hoover to run a positive economy that has lost jobs.
What is music when you despise all sound?
(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.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Guess that wouldn't always be the case, but it is a bit ironic.
sPh
(...)but both France and UK have n(...)
I don believe the UK would retaliate against their great friend of all times, the US...
they'll probably turn their nukes on the french !!!
It doesn't give you bargining power. The US is following a similar policy to that of the 80s, and that is to devaluate the US currency to promote exports into the rest of the world.
Do not gloat over the new found value of the Euro. It is on purpose. Also note that considering how much Germany and France are allowed to violated EU rules applied to other states the currency isn't exactly teneable long term.
I think the original poster was right, the US could do it regardless, it just now requires the EU to acknowledge the fact that their system isn't invulnerable. If anything people should be happy they have to admit to allowing the possibility of jamming. If anything those on the EU side now have someone to point the finger at to accept blame for "changes to their project", of which I bet a few more "changes" slip in under.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Why should Europe have to obey their liberators for an eternity? First of all, the irony of that is too much. Secondly, what's the point in having an independent system if the USA will be able to control it?
This would be slightly less scary if governments were made up of people & didn't make such a pigs ear of repression ("Hey lets arrest the wrong people and make the six o'clock news").
Unfortunately they do and it is bloody scary.
Boring Old Fart (40, married, 3 kids...er no...make that 49, married, 3 grown up kids...it's been a long time)
Wait a second...I thought this is what ASAT was for!
it's completely useless. I was interested but now that the Yanks can screw with it, what's the point?
The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
Without even being European, when I first learnt about the Galileo project I found it an astonishingly important oppportunity to end the political/cultural/social/military international monopoly in at least one area. I can hardly conceive that a system as important as GPS is controlled by one nation only, having the entire world depend on it for so much. Galileo wasn't just important, hell, it was revolutionary. And now all of those nice feeligns are starting to fade ...
Yes, this is a terrible setback for the project, for the EU, and for the rest of the world. Galileo might work and everything, sure, but when push comes to shove the US will have full powers to unplug it as if it were its own, or probably worse, to keep it running sending bogus information. This entire "imposing our system on the world" goes against the US' usual free markets and options discourse, but hell, they are usually hipocritical about it anyway.
I, for one, am afraid I cannot welcome our old-school dictatorial global positioning controller overlords. Real bummer.
http://castorexmachina.wordpress.com - Filosofía, tecnología y cultura.
Obviously it is. I announce a Linux distro that's Windows compatible, but then I decide that, well, no, it's not, that's kinda a setback for the whole "this isn't a pointless waste of time" idea, no? Eerily similar, in fact, to announcing a GPS system that can't be jammed, and later deciding that, wait, no, we were actually, how you say, "making shit up" when we said that.
And now, let me, here, use a few more, additional, useless, commas, and clauses, that will fuck, up, you know, the flow of the sentance, yeah.
wait a minute - who created the climate of "we rule. we do and take whatever we want. we owe justification to no one. we judge without being judged ourselves." ?
isn't that just exactly why so many are upset/furious with us westerners?
Isn't it unfair? Doesn't it give the US too much power?
How about this... we finally find bin Laden's hideout in Afghanistan. He's tracked down while traveling in unfamiliar territory (to him). Wouldn't it be nice if we could jam that wonderful "open" GPS system that he's using to find his way somewhere else? Wouldn't it also be in the EU's best interest for someone (the US included) to catch bin Laden?
How about a situation where N. Korea or Iran launches a GPS guided nuclear missile. Wouldn't it be nice if the US could jam the GPS system in time to keep that warhead from reaching its destination?
Can't you think of other situations where this would be helpful?
I'm all for open systems and making technology accessible to the public, but sometimes there are good reasons for controlling that technology.
US inflation has been stable in the midst of the rise of the Euro. Obviously there is more than one lever involved in the matter which I was waiting for someone to walk into. One of those levers includes less assumption of consumer debt. Another is that prices for certain imported commodities (e.g. oil) are not controlled by the US, and as means of production, this relative stability only helps matters. From a purchasing power parity perspective, Canada (the largest US trading partner and where I am now, so stop this "you" business) is still not balanced relative to the US though prices have begun to fall somewhat in Canada on certain imported items (e.g. Apple's computers). In fact, Canada's economic growth was limited to 1.1% instead of the 3% the Bank of Canada projected because of the relative rise in the Canadian dollar, all while the US economy was rising 8.2%. Taxes have also fallen in the US creating additional money circulating through the US economy while the tax base in Europe is relatively steady albeit extremely high. I would've thought that there would be an increase in prices in the US, but there isn't, which means that there are many other things going on other than what I discussed. And now you know.
So the US military wants a switch it can throw to jam Galileo? Fine, anything for our friends.
There should also be another switch Europeans can throw to turn off the jamming capability. That way both parties get what they want.
Take terrorism. In England people were murdered for decades by IRA terrorists funded in no small part by Americans. Suddenly the Twin Towers are attacked and terrorism is the new world evil and the IRA funding via NorAid is stopped.
Welcome to the wonderful world of hypocrisy.
--
This sig is inoffensive.
It would seem a little odd if the US and its greatest ally went to war with each other yes....
i'm not sure of the specifics, but most likely they decreased the civilian bands (accuracy) over iraq, while maintaining (or increasing, due to more sattelites) the military bands. it's well known they have different bands for those two systems, no reason why they wouldn't use them.
:)
i could be wrong though
I really think it is a nessisity to be able to jam frequecies. Because who wants a frequency open over the white house of pentigon. Because they any nut with a missle and a Galileo receiver could launch a missle at a low range altitude at Washington.
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.
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
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.
US: Change Galileo so we can jam it.
... and?
EU:
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.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
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.
what if the US get caught by a coup d'etat?
Already happened -- November 22, 1963.
-kgj
-kgj
That article is basically content free since they're
not telling us what the freqs are, or why they
would be particularly susceptible to destructive
interference. I call BS.
Not to mention, the US gov has enough money and
equipment to jam pretty much *any* signal they choose to...
haha! i've been wondering what was that guy's name for a while (well both, helmet and lone starr). thanks for the memory :)
By the same token, if the US can jam these frequencies, isn't it also possible the EU would have this same ability? The US military is sufficiently powerful to say the least, but I can't imagine we hold a monopoly on these techniques? Maybe this isn't the US securing a foothold on Europe so much as it is the US "encouraging" the friendly gov'ts of the EU to cement their own?
"Watch your cornhole, bud."
I don believe the UK would retaliate against their great friend of all times, the US...
they'll probably turn their nukes on the french !!!
And to anyone who knows history, this is wildly hilarious.
(For the uninformed, the French were good friends during the revolutionary war. The Brits were obviously enemies. See that Statue of Liberty? It was a gift from the French.)
Ok, so politics changed significantly after the US helped Britain develop Radar and weapons during WWII, but it's still rather amusing.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I don't think that the article was intending to convey the same message as the slashdot summary.. but in essence, I think the idea would be that the US wants galileo to work on different frequencies so that a) it doesn't interfere with gps (obviously this would be a design configuration anyhow) and b) it's totally independent.. ..so, for instance..
;)
gps works on frequencies 1, 4, and 7. galileo works on 2, 3, and 4. In this for-instance, blocking galileo involves blocking a third of gps's available signallage, possibly diminishing the usefulness of the system. If galileo worked on 2, 3, and 5, then this wouldn't be a problem. Extend this to exclusive signals which naturally interfere with each other (harmonised signals and the like), and that's probably the essence of what you're asking.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you
It wasn't a very sound policy move (and I believe this was pointed out at the time). When the tariff was introduced the electoral swing states just happened to be the ones with the steel mills, the processors paid the price of buying those votes.
The French have always been a big proponent but then again they have this massive penis envy with respect to the US.
Speaking as a non-American but not a francophone, I'd say that it's more like the French dislike that the Americans assume that everyone else wants to be like them because "America is the best place in the world."
I doubt that the average Frenchman goes home from a day at works, has dinner, and says "damn I wish I were an American" on the average day.
This story is *TRUE*.
Yeah, you can blame the terrorists for causing this level of paranoia in the first place, but blaming the present on past events, even if true, isn't productive. The powers that be in the US are going to have to eventually learn to move on with life. What happened was tragic on 9/11/2001 was terribly tragic, yes... but the above scenario can happenned in a place that is called "the land of the free". What sane person that wasn't being racist, prejudiced, or bigoted, would want freedom if it came at that price?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
And who created the terrorists? Why, the good 'ol USA. The people that brought you Saddam Hussain (ex-CIA assassin and short-time puppet ruler of Iraq), the fantasy nation of Israel, many fun-time bombings by the IRA, the Cuban missile crisis (laugh and laugh again as the US nearly destrys the world by objecting to Russia having a handful of missiles as close to America as America's hundreds of warheads are to Russia), frollics in Vietnam, the friendly WMD of Pakistan, not forgetting most-favoured trading nation China and its ongoing attepts to crush the kingdoms of the Himalaya and its own democratic movements, the attepted assassination of democratically elected President of Venezuela (that happened during Gulf War II so if you missed it, just wait for the repeat), arms to Iran, arms to Iraq, arms to Nicaragua, arms for drugs, arms for cash, ARMS FOR ANYTHING!
This century only: a corrupt US-backed African government free with almost any African sub-Saharan country.
America's government is available in the shops or by phone: just dial Washington I-HAVE-OIL and ask for "Donald" for low, low prices on West Nile Virus, Anthrax, Botulism, and a host of other great diseases. Have your credit card details ready.
Yes, thank God for the US, without it who would you turn to in war-time?
I bought weapons of mass destruction from America and their after-sales service was second-to-none: they even sent over CIA agents to help "calibrate" the weapons when I fired them at Iranians. This saved a lot of time when I gassed my own civilian population later. I wouldn't buy E. coli off anyone else." Mr S. H., Iraq
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Firstly, I'm not sure how easy it is to jam such a system in a specific area without affecting a broader base, moresoover in a way that can't be done already. Also, the whole "what about the terrorists" arguement has become as stale as "what about the children." Do you think that the EU should bow to the US and degrade a service provided to everyone on the off possibility that the US might need to disrupt it going after a particular individual/group?
If the EU is in control of said system in the first place... and they're cooperating with the US, why not just let them do it?
I read the article and it is clear only that the writer and his editor are ignorant of the technology. Jamming any radio signal is still a power game first and a matter of hacking the signal second. The first technical issue is being able to generate enough power at the correct frequencies and then of directing it at the receivers. The present generation of GPS is ridiculously easy to jam because of the low power of the transmitters on the satellites, a fact that Galileo's European designers are well aware of. The anti-jam features that can be added to the transmitters and receivers have been described in open literature for years. Just toying with the frequency range of the system accomplishes nothing that the newspaper article claims. I agree that the article is flamebait. The real question for European governments to answer is why they will waste millions of the taxpayers' Euros to build a competitor to two free systems, GPS and Uragan, that already serve Europe and whose owners have pledged to upgrade and maintain? Who owns the companies that will benefit from this piece of indoor welfare? What scientist or engineer wants to brag: "We're Number Four!" (after GPS, Uragan, and Beidou)?
Just for grins, I leave my GPS on Anchor Watch. If my house suddnly relocates according to the GPS, I'll know to head for the cellar!
I think if the signal was tampered with or jammed, it would be noticed right away. There is lots of monitoring of the signal to produce correction differental signals. These station reports would be the source of the first indication something was wrong.
The truth shall set you free!
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...And you don't think that ANY other military power with global (or even regional!) reach has plans for how to invade EVERY OTHER country on the planet? That's what militaries DO in peacetime ... prepare for the next possible war, not the last one. No sir! Only the US has those types of plans!
I would bet that a similar story during the Clinton years would not have both sides giving knee-jerk reactions from the start with plenty of posts stating that the other party (that is the other part of NATO) could not be trusted or have some bad motives.
[flamebait] Nice going mr. Bush! From having the whole world on your side after 9/11, now nobody of you allies citizens trust you or your nation to do anything right. And the poor US contigent thinks that nuking the EU is a valuable option. [/flamebait]
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
GPS signals are jammable now. Iraq actually tried it during the late fracas betweeen their military and the US military. The US military could also turn selective availabiliy back on in the GPS system, but that was a demonstrably futile "feature." Engineers had worked out methods for post-processing GPS and real-time differential correction before the first GPS satellite was launched. Besides, I doubt there are such things as un-jammable radio transmissions. They would require tremendous signal strength to override a jamming signal. It's foolishness.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
East Timor was invaded (with mass murders and all the tralala until the Aussies went to clean up the mess recently) with Kissinger's blessing, with US-build weapons (theoretically sold for defence purposes only, but I don't see the point of H.K.'s visit a few days before the invasion started).
The story is NOT about the U.S. controlling all GPS systems. The FACT is NATO not just the U.S. wanted some way to add security features so only NATO can use it in times of war. The last I checked NATO is composed of mostly European countries. Get off you high liberal horse and get the facts.
Isn't Janet Reno behind the Jamming Abilities?
;-)
I remember she had some cool Jam parties in her basement on SNL.
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?
We ( read the USA ) *should* have the ablity to jam anyone else in the world.
You friends become your enemies in an instant when they think they can get away with it.
So ya, we should demand OUR interests come first.. Screw the rest of ya...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
When the Galileo/China announcement was made on this forum a while back, I wrote that the project was becoming a strategic military threat to the U.S., mainly because China was participating and will put the capability to military use. By allowing the system to be jammed in time of war Europe shows that it takes these concerns seriously and that the project will be for civilian use only.
an ill wind that blows no good
Umm, you call the fastest ground war in history a problem? Or are you refering to the occupation? Ironically enough, we'd almost as good vs. Europe right now.
Europe has
1. A disarmed population (Except for switzerland).
2. A climate that our weapon systems were designed for.
2a. We have many cold war scenarios for fighting the USSR in Europe, we have maps and know the area.
3. A bunch of pacifists in government there.
4. We've been proping up Europe's defense for decades. Imagine a plus changing into a minus.
Though I agree, war with Europe would be bad. I don't want WWIII.
I don't read AC A human right
Please keep in mind that if the US did not care about the civilians or collateral damage... IRAQ would be gone and ZERO US soldiers would be hurt.
We probably would not care to rebuild Europe in the event of a US vs. EU war.
www.thejulingtoncreekplantaion.com
First, when I last checked, Somailia and Bosnia are damned far from anything resembling our doorstep or national interests. Second, when something does come to our doorstep, you can be sure we will take care of it, as that's called self-preservation. The French aside, most nations do have an instinct of self-preservation.
Take terrorism. In England people were murdered for decades by IRA terrorists funded in no small part by Americans.
Some Irish-Americans, perhaps, acting as private citizens. That's like blaming Germany because Muslims living in Germany contributed heavily to Al-Queda. That doesn't fly.
Suddenly the Twin Towers are attacked and terrorism is the new world evil and the IRA funding via NorAid is stopped.
Don't know what you're going after there - NorAid seems to be a private organization. The idea that the US gov is supporting them in any way is laughable. Presumably, the British are big boys and can take care of themselves. However, if they need help taking care of the Irish in a fair way, we'll help. However, the disinterested skeptic might conclude that Britain's tactics against the Irish strongly resemble Israel's against the Palestinians, and as long as that's the case, the US won't get involved as Britain certainly isn't the clear-cut "good guy" there.
Personally, I'd recommend allowing NI a referendum on joining Ireland, as that would solve the whole problem.
Ultimately, no country in Europe has done a damned thing outside its borders in 50 years, save sending a thousand troops or so to play soldier in UN-sanctioned excercises in pointlessness. Even in those conflicts, it's the US doing the real work while European armies police Red Cross shelters. European armies have been allowed to decay into make-work for older, under-skilled citizens, with the exception of the British army which has been somewhat well-maintained.
If Europe wants a say in the world, it can get up off its collective ass and do something. Until it does, it has no right to complain that it is not consulted on decisions that are made and enforced at the expense of US money and lives.
That's not hypocrisy. That's exercising prerogative.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
It's the satellites themselves that transmit their position to the handset.
/greger
Ahhh... That explains why my car's navigational system insisted that the most direct route to the supermarket was through Baghdad!
Hate me!
I remember from New Scientist that the US wanted Galileo on a different frequency so they could jam it without jamming GPS. Galileo was going to operate on a similar range of frequencies to GPS, so jamming one would jam both.
If they change Galileo's frequencies, Galileo and GPS can each be jammed independently so GPS can be used in a war zone and Galileo can't.
There's nothing to stop anyone jamming either system without affecting the other one. This is not a global effect, it's local only.
While I agree that the US is a control freak (more on that later), the fact that you consider "americans" and the US government one in the same shows that you don't understand the power struggle which has been going on within the US since our involvement in World War I.
Assuming you do in fact mean citizens in the US, Americans in general are being taken for a ride by their government. The government is in turn being pushed around by large corporations.
You ought to ask yourself, why would commercial corporations be adverse to an independent global positioning system with possible military applications? I mean, nobody charges to use the US GPS system. The reason isn't competitive.
It's all about control. So when you figure out who controls the corporations that control the federal government, and why they have a military interest, hopefully you will know not to blame it on "americans".
You will instead understand why we fought in the major wars on the sides that we did. You'll understand what Vietnam is all about, the Red Scare. The reason applies to *everything* that the US has been involved in, at least since WWII.
And it applies to the US government having control of more than just the US.
who know less than yourself. Economics is all about balance. You lower the value of your currency to lower the relative price of your goods on foreign markets and make importing goods more expensive. This decreases your deficit and follows through to a surplus. The foreigners who pay for your goods need dollars (if we take the US as an example) as you export more and more these dollars are in shorter supply so their price relative to the purchasers currency rises. This is how the cycle is supposed to work.
The problem the US is facing is that the dollar is devaluing and the defecit isn't shrinking. Some reasons for this are the US expenditure on little foreign excursions to the Gulf which don't come cheaply and a lack of confidence in the dollar on the exchange markets. This lack of confidence is due to people thinking it's going to have to fall further and them predicting they'll lose money if they buy it now - this is not a good thing - this is how stock-market crashes and the like happen.
Of course there is hope for all economies, the lower your currency goes the more attractive more and more services you offer to the world become. Maybe we'll start seeing US made Nike trainers - I hope your children have quick fingers.
In today's world it's a tough choice accept some degradation and a US backdoor or if needs require, or loose the system. You don't think the powers that be proved a way to destroy the system at will? Why else would something like this occur, think they were shown the facts and decided to gripe but following the line. Is this worse than them just quietly doing it, at least we know what happened (kinda)
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.
The reason the US put diplomatic pressure on the EU to change to an "easily jammable" frequency is that the initial proposals for Galileo had it using the exact same carrier frequency as GPS. This was an attempt by the EU to prevent jamming of Galileo without taking down American GPS as well. Naturally, having Galileo placed atop the GPS frequency irked the Americans and caused this apprently successful push to change frequencies.
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.
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.
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
There is no such thing as an "attitude" that would warrant reckless death and destruction. You say you don't like America's attitude, and therefore you hate us? Why should America tolerate hatred like yours? Have you considered how morally indefensible your position is? Have you made any effort to keep yourself accountable while pointing fingers at the USA? There is no enterprise in life that operates on the scale of the USA that will be able to make every decision and take actions in a manner that is entirely consistent with the interests of all other constituencies.
The question is: How have I, an American citizen, who you profess to hate, how have I harmed you, whoever you are? How has my participation in my local civilization interfered with yours? Why are you so quick to buy into the notion that leaders have absolute power? Why don't you see that governments are only like cowboys in the sense that they are riding the bull, barely hanging on, and pretending to be in control? You hate me, but I don't hate you. I pity you.
As I said on another post, I'm pretty sure the rest of the world combined has equal military strength as the US.
Realisticly, that statement is laughably untrue. Sure, rest of the world combined may have numerical superiority in many areas, but no nation in history has the ability to project power like the United States.
For instance, the US fields 12 super carriers, complete with their escort battlegroups. In addition the US has about 50 Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarines. Care to guess how many fleet carriers are fielded by nations other than the US? I believe the answer is one - France's Foch. Britain has a significant force of smaller carriers. Britain, Russia, and a few other countries have significant submarine forces, but none are considered a threat to the Los Angeles class submarines. Nothing travels the oceans without the permission of the United States.
Now that the US has clear naval superiority, the Americas, Eurasia, Africa, and Oceana are isolated. The US can now defeat in detail the forces of Canada and Latin America. Canada is fighting with American hardware and fine troops, but it is simply a numbers game. Latin America doesn't stand a chance.
At this point, the "world" powers have lost the ability to take the initiative. The US gets to choose when battles occur, where they occur, and when they end.
Oceana also has a fine military, but again loses on account of numbers. Africa is easy enough. Most of Europe has a decent military system. American hardware would eventually prevail, but with significant cost. China is the tough nut to crack just on their traditional willingness to suffer immense casualties.
Of course, the US doesn't even need to invade. The US can just place its fleet carriers off shore of each of these places - one at a time - bomb the infrastructure to hell, and leave. They can never project power accross our oceans if we don't let them have a shipyard or a working runway.
It boggles the mind, but consider the fact that the US military can apply ANY measure of power to ANY point on the planet. By that measure, no one else comes close.
I would think that a war between the US and the EU would go better then a war with radical terrorists.
At least if the US-EU war ever broke out (touchwood), it'd be a conventional war, with weapons both sides know how to deal with and both sides have a sense of self preservation as well as the brains to remember that it's cowardly to purposely kill innocent people.
As opposed to the current problem where you are fighting an army you cannot find, using weapons (suicide bomber) for which there is no countermeasure, against an enemy who is willing to die and looking to destroy un-armored civilian targets.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
IMHO, it's far easier for a nation like Iran to simply buy a GPS-based guidance system from the Chinese or Russians. The Russians and Chinese have no issue with selling missile equipment to each other, and to rogue states. Or how Pakistan is rumored to have helped North Korea in the development of Nuclear weapons in the past.
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Geolocation systems by their very nature are pushed into "easily jammed" frequencies. They need broad coverage (so the signal can be picked up anywhere beneath the satellite) with a relatively small antenna on the satellite (weight/size restrictions of launch vehicles). This means you have to use relatively low frequencies. The satellites can't transmit much power (not alot of power available on the satellite) so they need a frequency with low free space loss. Since the antennas of both the satellite and the ground based receiver have to be mostly omni-directional (satellite antenna is at least hemispheric, but will provide little gain), and small, this also drives to a relatively low frequency.
So now we know they need a relatively low frequency... what does this mean? It means that the signal is easier to jam than if it were at a high frequency. Since lower frequencies mean lower free space loss, they are easier to jam because you don't need to produce as much power to go as far. You can deliver more jamming power to a given antenna at a low frequency then at a high frequency.
Also GPS type signals are very weak on the ground. The satellites don't transmit much power and the space loss knocks it doen until the signal is very close to the noise floor. You don't need that much power to jam it anyway.
Basicly what I'm saying is this: if Galileo is to work as a geolocation system it will be, by definition, at an easily jammed frequency. The US just said, "get off of our frequencies and find your own". They didn't say, "go to this frequency so we can easily jam you".
Some Irish-Americans, perhaps, acting as private citizens. That's like blaming Germany because Muslims living in Germany contributed heavily to Al-Queda. That doesn't fly.
Yeah and I suppose funding of Al Qaeda by private US citizens is not illegal? It's more like blaming a country for taking no action against its citizens who collude in the murder of innocent men, women and children.
Personally, I'd recommend allowing NI a referendum on joining Ireland, as that would solve the whole problem.
Hell, why didn't successive UK governments think of that? Because the vote would go in favour of NI remaining in the UK, check out the demographics, and the aggrieved would remain aggrieved and the Unionists would be even more instransigent. For goodness sake, the maniac Paisley just got the biggest share of the vote in the elections for the NI assembly and he is virulently against the Good Friday agreement.
The election results are here. Note that the republicans of all flavours got 42 seats against 59 for Unionists with 6 for the Alliance (we love everybody) Party and one independent!.
You created the terrorists in the first place. Why should we have to deal with the concequences of your imperialism?
In this summer my friend has bought a nice receiver of GLONASS - a Russian Navy GPS system. Quite amazing little toy from Javad Navigations. Civilian version is precise enough to guide a tactical missile :) we got our coordinates with ten meter precision.
Probably military version is much better. And outside of US interferences: there are always Topol-M s targeted into Washington DC. Who wants nuclear war on such scale? Mutual Assured Destruction still works.
So whats the point in Galileo? if UE has no power to defend their systems, use Russian alternative.
This is a wonder of competition.
for your pleasure: http://www.glonass-center.ru/
Yep great, but the article reports on the talks over limiting the accuracy.
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.
This is my sig.
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.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
MY FUCKING GOD! WHY DIDN'T WE THINK OF THAT! It just goes to show, all those years of violence and all we needed to do was ask an American.
Just give me a minute whilst I check with the Republicans if its OK with them that NI remains part of the UK after the predominantly Unionist population wins your cleverly devised referendum.
Cats: All your Galileo are belong to US. :)
Fellowship 9/11
An occupied European country would produce resistance fighters (or "radical terrorists" as you call them) all over the place. Just look at WWII. The new French resistance would be able to hurt the occupiers much more than they hurt the nazis simply because of the stronger fire-power available for guerilla these days. These "terrorist" would make an occupation of Iraq look like walk in the park, because contrary to Iraq, a nation like France is very unified and does not hate their previous leader or political system. And a strong army is already present in France which would make the back-bone of the resistance. (Exchange France with whatever European country that you feel like invading).
These are all very unlikely future events, but maybe good to discuss since so many young US citizens (and a few politicians) have a very strange perception of how EU should do what they are told because "we have nukes". Contrary to these naive views, it is good to look at history and realise that invading Europe is something petty dictators have done over the centuries and they have all failed in the end, just like a hypothetical attack by a guy like Bush would not lead to pax americana but just a bunch of dead people and then a defeat like Hitler got. And before you say that Hitler's military was nothing compared to the US of today, realise that Hitler had a stronger army than a country like the US or any other nation of the time when WWII started. The reason Hitler failed was by making too many enemies and the sacrifices of resistance fighters, UK, Soviet Union and the US, to mention a few of the major players. Then consider how many enemies the US of today would get by invading Europe.
EU was actually created to stop Europe from producing leaders that (wrongly) thought that military power is all you need to control other nations. Idiots that found diplomacy to be a sign of weakness. Hopefully the policies of pre-emptive war will be understood by voters to be just a version of might is right, which has been proven wrong again and again and again.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
I think the odds of as US/EU war are virtually zero. Also, I think it's important to remember that bad as 9/ll was, it was essentially a fleabite. China is the only major threat, in my opinion.
I find it particularly telling that while the US seems to be nearly paranoid about possible "terrorist" (TM) uses of the EU's GPS, the EU doesn't seem to have the same concerns. Welcome to siege mentality.
It is idiotic to maintain superiority through bullying tactics. It leaves you open to get stabbed in the back. And people question animosity towards the US.
You really need to take charge of your own military to help save us people here in the US. We could invade ourselves at any time and need protection from ourselves.
I know, this post has trollesque qualities, but don't hold it against me.
Just as Europeans have enjoyed using American GPS for years in Europe, American's would now have the ability to use the Euro-GPS (Galileo) signals while in America.
The problem there is that w/ extreme precision these signals can be used on guided missles to launch attacks with relatively little brain power inside the bomb.
It's not so much that the USA wants control in other parts of the country, more that they want control in the US. Otherwise, maybe they would demand that the US and US controlled areas be left in dark-spots from the Euro-GPS system.
It's being done to protect the USA... naturally no one else in the world likes this because it means they aren't the ones w/ their fingers on the button...
But when comes down to it, the US is generally the one who goes off and polices the globe as well as prevents strong negative leaders from gaining too much power or weaponry.
w/o the US, Hitler would probably have been the ruler of this planet for a time... there was no way that Russia & UK could have won w/o support from the US, not without dragging the war out for decades and losing millions of troops.
Those who say differently are nothing but historical revisionists... it's quite easy for a 20-something person to balk at WWII and say it wasn't as bad, or as desperate, as it was... ask someone who lived through it and they will tell you.
What makes you think that it really does not matter WHAT frequency is picked....our military could jam it? I know it sounds bad, but at least our government is working to find a joint solution rather then just doing what they could do in the first place....jam it without asking anyway. Jamming a RF signal isn't a particularly hard thing to do either if they really want to do it they can. Trust me.
Gorkman
This about the ability to deny service.
By using frequencies more prone to radio jamming equipment, the US military (and other suitably equipped forces) can completely blot out Galileo reception in a very localized area around a conflict zone. In the area where the jamming is in use, there would no useful signal at all. Outside of the jamming area, the signal and accuracy would be completely un-affected. Thus anyone with a big radio transmitter can deny service in a local area, but only the EU will have command and control of the satellites themselves. (And for those worried about equality, the GPS signal can also be jammed, but new GPS satellites transmit at higher power levels than earlier models, requiring bigger, noiser, easier to hunt and kill, jamming systems)
This compares to the current GPS system run by the US which is designed to be able to transmit deliberately wrong positioning information on uncoded channels. Coded channels still transmit full-accuracy data (better than the normal uncoded channels, mind you) that military-grade GPS receivers can monitor. However, for the signal downgrading to be effective, it has to be applied to most or all of the satellites above the visible horizon from the conflict zone. Or to downgrade the signal in Iraq, uncoded channels on a satellites providing coverage everywhere from New York to Toyko have to be downgraded. The system loses accuracy globally, but with the most severe effects in the intended region.
By being jam-able rather than downgrade-able, the Galileo system can perserve its civilian utility in times of war without giving either side a military advantage (unless the US and the EU decide to turn the trade wars up a notch). The GPS will probably remain the primary means of navigation for US and US-allied forces (who receive the Q-codes for the coded channels) for the forseeble future.
The existence of the plans doesn't mean they'll be used, however.
Best Slashdot Co
"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"
Imagine for a second that you are playing Civilization. You're playing along, kicking ass most of the time, and then suddenly you find out that someone else is coming up with a weapon system that could be used against you with devastating effects.
Would you:
A) Throw your weight around and get a trump card on the system so that you can jam it when you see fit.
B) Decide to let them have their weapons system. After all, just because you're doing better than everyone else in the game doesn't give you the right to win!
Sounds like you would pick B.
Oh, and the weapon system happens to have the side effect of helping ambulances find what side of the street an accident is on.
... he wants to kill the Americans.
He said actions like that make people hate the US' arrogance and make them commit desperate deeds like suicide bombing.
I don't need a signature.
In theory the EU can put up a constellation that rivals GPS. In practice it is highly unlikely. What happened to the Euro-Fighter or even the European equivalent to the US's C-130 cargo plane. They were low quality, over priced, and they couldn't get the technology right. What about that EU constitution; it's going down in flames. Examples are too numerous to recount here. I believe many European countries could pull it off. But when the collective EU tackles a problem their track record is very poor indeed.
Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 107?
You mean something like the Airbus A380?
If so, why don't they fly them?
Could you be referring to planes such as the Airbus A340, A330, A320, A310, A300. Tuploev Tu-204. Ilyushin Il-96?
Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes?
See Airbus above.
So how much is the service and when is the RIAA going to shut it down?
--"It's Bradford Company, slash your last name, dot your first name"
You can bet the Chinese would be looking to shoot down the GPS system if they got into a war.
There may be no need to shoot them down - there might already be a miniature parasite satellite attached to them, just waiting a signal...
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Supposing (despite the technology of the time) the US had, in these two cases, had a GPS system operating, and had refused to shut it down to benefit the European belligerents. Would it be fair for the Europeans to shoot down the satellites?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Since its the duty of the largest benevolent nation to remain in power to help protect the rest of the world, ( and themselves first of course ) this only makes since.
We have to retain the advantage, as tomorrow you don't know who your friends may be.. The world is too fluid to assume anything.
If the rest of the world doesn't like it, too damned bad. We have bailed their butts out of a jam so many times I've lost count.
We need to 'be there' for next time, and making assumptions of who will be on the 'side of good' isn't going to insure that. ( though personally I'm sick an tired of helping out shallow nations that as soon as things go good for them they dis us.. at least until they want the next handout )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
US and EU interests usually coincide...
You, sir, are obviously American.
Anybody who at any point believed that a 4-5 BILLION dollar system put up by GOVERNMENTS would be out of the control of those same governments is out of their mind. You can jam any frequency, so the switch was probabally to avoid overlapping signals from something else.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Let us then be thankful that you don't hold any position of power.
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
France on it's own has enough nukes to wipe half of America off the map if it came down to it. MAD would work just as well in Europe vs USA as it did in Russia vs USA.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...any country in the EU that gets in a fight with any country that has access to handheld GPS systems should have the right to destroy the GPS system (well, they'd be forced to, right?).
This is more like bullying tactics - the argument basically comes out as 'You play by our rules or we might have to destroy your new toys'. I can see the point he's making, but I can't see that the US (or any other country) has any right to make a demand like this for their military convenience.
Warning: May contain nuts
In other news Microsoft is making progress implementing its new TCPA standard and co-oparating with the Linux community - "We want the linux kernal to only reside in a specific block of memory so that it can co-exist with a Windows OS at the same time and also so that the Windows OS can terminate it if needed." said Bill Gates.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Some Irish-Americans, perhaps, acting as private citizens. That's like blaming Germany because Muslims living in Germany contributed heavily to Al-Queda. That doesn't fly.
Perhaps. But the US did had more to do with UK terrorism than Iraq had to do with bombing the twin towers.
Personally, I'd recommend allowing NI a referendum on joining Ireland, as that would solve the whole problem.
Of course! We'll do what the majority of people in Northern Ireland want, and then there'll be no more violence. Why didn't we think of that!
Except... Wait. We did. And over one hundred years ago. Oh well.
The problem with Irish politics, of which you are entirely ignorant, is that the majority of people living in Northern Ireland want to remain part of the UK. The minority (though a rather large minority) want to become a part of Ireland. Due largely to religious differences between the two, and the fact that the Irish can hold grudges for centuries, we can't just wave a magic wand and make it all right.
Ultimately, no country in Europe has done a damned thing outside its borders in 50 years, save sending a thousand troops or so to play soldier in UN-sanctioned excercises in pointlessness. Even in those conflicts, it's the US doing the real work while European armies police Red Cross shelters. European armies have been allowed to decay into make-work for older, under-skilled citizens, with the exception of the British army which has been somewhat well-maintained.
Yep, they've done absolutely nothing. Not one bit. Well, except create the second (soon to be the) largest single market in the world, and initiated an immense project of international cooperation that is unpreceeded in history. Nothing like the EU has ever been set up in the whole of human history. A collaberation of member states around a single market, and planned currency. It may not be perfect, but since no-one's done this before, and taking the incompetance of politicians into account, perhaps that can be forgiven.
No European country has gone out and blown up a lot of stuff in recent history, this is true. But is that really a good thing? Is the only way to mark history is to wage war?
Um... I suggest that people click on the parent link and note that I was actually using a form of humour known as "sarcasm". It may be refered to as the lowest form of wit, but obviously I need to explain despite this.
Perhaps I could put <sarcasm> tags around it?
Yes, and I agree with you. Check the parent to my post. Perhaps I was being too subtle in my sarcasm, I suppose. Still, it's irritating that whoever who modded me as troll wasn't browsing at 0, otherwise they would have picked up the AC I was replying to. Oh well.
:)
Next time I'll be sure to put big "SARCASM" notices up
maybe if we can get our government under control
:`(
you can too
yours, UK
not meant as a troll I want my democracy back too
A blog I run for the wealth
I'm calling this one. Let's see it. Also, for what it's worth, I never claimed Iraw had a damned thing to do with the twin towers. I think you have your countries and wars confused.
The problem with Irish politics, of which you are entirely ignorant,
I'm ignorant of it because I don't give a damn. I didn't bring it up either, I'm simply responding. It was a rather irrelevant red-herring response to my original post.
The minority (though a rather large minority) want to become a part of Ireland. Due largely to religious differences between the two, and the fact that the Irish can hold grudges for centuries, we can't just wave a magic wand and make it all right.
First, that's a blatantly insulting ethnicist statement, and shows that the problem doesn't lie 100% with the irish. And as you point out I am ignorant of the politics, but I *bet* that there are contigious regions of Irish catholics, probably those most near Ireland, in favor of splitting with the UK. Not my business or my problem, but you'd be wise to let them.
Yep, they've done absolutely nothing. Not one bit. Well, except create the second (soon to be the) largest single market in the world,
That doesn't have a damned thing to do with the price of diamonds in Sierra Leone. I'm talking about solving world problems outside your borders. Saying you made an economically united Europe to further your own economic goals really doesn't count.
Nothing like the EU has ever been set up in the whole of human history.
Wow, that's some delusion of grandeur there. The international economy still runs on dollars. Pisses you off, doesn't it?
No European country has gone out and blown up a lot of stuff in recent history, this is true. But is that really a good thing? Is the only way to mark history is to wage war?
It's not about waging war, it's about ending genocide and furthering stability and self-determinism. Put it this way - what the hell has Europe done in the last 50 years for someone not in Europe? When has any European nation sent hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of its own to risk their lives for the freedom of people they've never met?
I can't think of a single time. Ever. The US has done it a number of times in the last 75 years. We don't always make the right decisions - I'd be the first to admit that - but when no one else is willing to help out, that will happen.
Europe is big on using its mouth to decry atrocities, but loathe to actually do anything to fix them. And there's a whole lot of problems out there that need fixing, and we don't have the resources to do it right now. You could start in western Africa. Put up or shut up.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That would have been an attack on the US and the US would have responded with military action. Don't kid yourself about getting away with agression; in the long run you will catch up with you. Just like Osama bin Laden turned from being controlled by the US to its worst enemy.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
The point is that its money came from US Americans, perfectly legally. The terrorists operating out of Germany were doing so illegally - i.e. the German government in no way condoned their activities. That funding for NorAid et. al. was legal in the US indicated that the US government tacitly accepted the IRA as a legitimate organisation. Funding terrorist organisations is, of course, a crime in the US; however the definition of a terrorist organisation is often a matter of perspective, so such organisations have to be identified specifically by legislators. The IRA have maintained a cease-fire for many years now; a considerable factor in the existance of the cease-fire is surely the overdue but welcome ban on fundraising on its behalf in the US.
Ah; we see your colours - mod +1 flamebait. Oh well, I've bitten so may as well finish off. I won't bother countering your outrageous hyperbole, however I will say "good guy" is a ridiculous concept to introduce to such an issue - these things are never so black and white. Is George Bush a "good guy"? (that's rhetorical btw - answer, "depends who you ask").
For what its worth, you may want to research what the US' interests might have been in Somalia and Bosnia. Basically diversity and security of oil supply has to be a significant factor (not the only one, to be sure, but significant nonetheless). A quick search on Google finds several arguments along those lines; ranging as always from whackily paranoid to credibly well-researched.
Hate to burst your bubble but this DO change in 55+ years. Or are you forgeting that the USSR was good until the 1950s?
The US was good for that time but now things HAVE changed. The US policy has not.
The Yanks have enough problems within their own country. They shouldn't be looking for more. Trillions of dollars in debt, a number of their states can't even support themselves and constant fear that 'the sky will fall on their heads'.
Not really a glorious example of democaracy and capitalism...
The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
Personally, I just think attempts to create an alternative GPS system is just space pollution. You have 3 sattelites telling your location all the time. Do you need more?
No knowns countermeasures exist.
Umm, doesn't that imply that there are some laws involved to make them illegal - it might help if he named them.
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The Israelis kidnapped a guy from Rome (he was tricked to go there from London) so their colleagues in the US might well consider doing the same thing.
It's been said that the purpose of NATO- and the commesurite troops we've kept in Europe, was to keep America in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.
After cleaning up Europe's messes in the first two world wars, it was decided it would be cheaper in terms of American lives just to keep a significant force in Europe to begin with.
This meant that attacking Europe meant killing American soldiers- something that isn't done lightly by anyone who would like to remain in power.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Which part of the Constitution says the candidate's brother is allowed to strike people off the electoral register if he thinks they'll vote the wrong way? That must be one of the later amendments. In biro.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Ah! a brilliant rebuttal. So much easier than bothering with evidence or facts.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The increase in accuracy is possible because the system can be updated to reflect the new positions of the satelites. It's that simple. The GPS signal carries the necessary information. The handsets recieve this information and store it.
Just read some more.
Life is too short to proofread.
Many readers ask the question "why is that a bad thing"?
Let me elaborate: This is an example how the US (military or government, your pick) seemingly tries to maintain "supremacy" over all the other global players (or at least the other feel like that). It might be different if e.g. the EU and the US would share those privileges - e.g. both would have the ability to jam the GPS systems etc.
But the last year(s) have show us that the US (at least under the current administration) will have their way, one way or another - The UN is against invading Iraq? Screw the UN we'll do it anyway (BTW I still wait to see those weapons of mass destruction, but that would lead us away from the topic - don't get me wrong I'm happy that the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are, more or less, freer).
But the point is this way the US can afford to basically ignore the rest of the nations, because it is and remains the probably most powerful nation on the planet. And personally I ask myself - do I REALLY want a nation - ANY NATION - to have this kind of ability - even if it is the US of A?
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
Some Irish-Americans, perhaps, acting as private citizens. That's like blaming Germany because Muslims living in Germany contributed heavily to Al-Queda. That doesn't fly.
Watch it fly: At no point did the US government ever stop NorAid until after 9/11. This was a group that blatantly funded IRA atrocities, implicitly supported by the US government who failed to ban them.
Personally, I'd recommend allowing NI a referendum on joining Ireland, as that would solve the whole problem.
Like the one last week? Unionists won about 48% of the vote, Nationalists about 40%. Over 25% of people voted for hard-line Unionists who won't even get into the same room as Sinn Fein. There's the answer to your poll.
If Europe wants a say in the world, it can get up off its collective ass and do something.
At the moment 'Europe' is just a collection of (increasingly disparate) states - some of whom share a currency, and with a few common laws. There is a big issue as to whether there should be a common defence policy, a common army or a European foreign spokesman. Most countries don't want these things at it would compromise national sovereignty. Essentially we're just a glorified trading bloc - albeit the largest free market on the planet - not some giant political entity like the USA.
--
This sig is inoffensive.
Ultimately, the rising muslim and anti-semetic populations in europe
You do know that most semitic people are muslim, don't you?
At this point, the "world" powers have lost the ability to take the initiative
... workforce, factories and such, except if you nuke everybody, but then it sucks hard to be the leader of an unhabitable planet.
Bravo, you just forgot ICBM nukes.
France alone has more than 350 ICBMs, IIRC, all of them capable of striking the East and West coast, simultaneously of course... Some of these pack multiple H-bomb heads. Other countries have the same capacities, Russia, England, China, possibly Israel, Pakistan, etc...
Even if you wipe out France, for instance, there are still 4 or 5 nuclear submarines *somewhere* in the ocean, which you WON'T be able to track and destroy in timely manner. Each of these submarines carry enough nukes around to destroy most of the urban areas of the U.S.
In the crazy hypothesis of global war (everybody against the U.S.A.), it ultimately doesn't matter how powerful the U.S.A. is: the theory of MAD(Mutually Assured Destruction, you know, the thing that prevented WW III...) still works.
BTW, there are more carriers than just the Foch: France produced the Foch, the Clemenceau (sold to Brazil I think), and now the (*grin*) Charles de Gaulle (nuclear carrier). Russia built some, and China would.
Plus, the other countries would very soon accelerate their arms production, which the U.S. can't do a thing about. I mean, no amount of power can stop the chinese + european + russian + indian +
(all of the above is just pure, hypothetical, theorical, mumbling. Kids, don't try this at home!)
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
IIRC, and I know it's been a while, but I'm pretty sure all Gore asked for is that certain counties be recounted to ensure any votes missed the first time were included. This was certainly the right thing to do - to the extent that he wasn't democratic enough, it was in not asking for all the counties in a particular state to be recounted - he concentrated on the largest ones.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Hrmmm...
So the EU has the resources to put Gallileo in place, but not to be able to jam GPS frequencies?
Likewise, are you stating that the US has a worldwide network in place just to jam Gallileo?
That's like saying that only the Swiss and Japanese can break precision wristwatches, because only they have the capability of making them.
Let me clue you into a secret - it's a lot easier to break a system than keep it running smoothly.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I'm calling this one. Let's see it. Also, for what it's worth, I never claimed Iraw had a damned thing to do with the twin towers. I think you have your countries and wars confused.
:) - He didn't mean it as an insult, either. It was just an observation, and frankly, a very astute one. Anyone claiming that quite a few Irish don't have a fixation on ancient grudges are just deluding themselves.
Um, well, the ball's in your court there. It's well known that the IRA had US backers. Has there been any evidence at all that the twin tower bombings had Iraqi backings? That was my point. I wasn't claiming anything more.
First, that's a blatantly insulting ethnicist statement, and shows that the problem doesn't lie 100% with the irish.
I was paraphrasing an irishman I know when he was describing his family to me. I was rather less blunt than he was
And as you point out I am ignorant of the politics, but I *bet* that there are contigious regions of Irish catholics, probably those most near Ireland, in favor of splitting with the UK. Not my business or my problem, but you'd be wise to let them.
The majority of the Catholic population in Ireland wants independence. The problem is that Northern Ireland (which isn't part of the RoI) is two-thirds Protestant.
That doesn't have a damned thing to do with the price of diamonds in Sierra Leone. I'm talking about solving world problems outside your borders. Saying you made an economically united Europe to further your own economic goals really doesn't count.
And the EU isn't one country. Take Spain, for instance. That's somewhere outside my borders. EU membership, and large cash grants have transformed it within a generation. If you visited it before it joined the EU, and compared it to it's neighbours, you'd see the difference between then and now. Heh. I hope I'm not being nasty to the Spanish there. Nice people, but anyone needs a leg up if you're economy was basically rock-bottom.
It's wrong to think of the EU as a country. It isn't. Countries that join the EU get many benefits, and cash does get distributed. Why do you think the 10 new countries are clamouring for membership? Because it'll benefit them a lot.
Wow, that's some delusion of grandeur there.
Sorry? I must have not been paying much attention in history for that to slip by me. When I say "Nothing like the EU has ever been set up in the whole of human history", that is, to the best of my knowledge, factually accurate. How is it delusional, unless I am incorrect. And if I am incorrect, could you provide an example of when this has happened before? I'd be intrigued of another EU-like setup.
It's not about waging war, it's about ending genocide and furthering stability and self-determinism. Put it this way - what the hell has Europe done in the last 50 years for someone not in Europe? When has any European nation sent hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of its own to risk their lives for the freedom of people they've never met?
Well, there was an obscure conflict, 65 years ago, when some nasty nation invaded another nation, and Britain came to the aid of it's ally, sacrificing tens of thousands of young men, amongst casualties of women and children from tonnes of bombs that were dropped nightly.
It was, of course, World War II. The US joined WW2 in defence. Only when it was attacked, did it fight. Britain, and France for that matter, declared war to stand up for the people in Poland. People they had never met. Frankly, it rather surprises me that France has a reputation for cowardice when it declared war on a superior force to aid another nation.
Now, you tell me, when has the US sent "hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of its own to risk their lives for the freedom of people they've never met"? Vietnam comes to mind. Of course, the US lost that, though it might have done some good. WWII, maybe, but that was motivated by defence... Hmm, can'
I shouldn't repond to an AC troll, but I will.
I know about all of those operations, and the European nations had to be dragged kicking and screaming into all of them. The US (Clinton adminstration) wanted to stop the murders in 1993, but France, Germany, etc. didn't give a fuck, and the American public wouldn't go in if NATO wouldn't go in.
It wasn't America's problem - why didn't Europe do something? And why are you an Anonymous Coward? Are you unwilling to defend Europe's actions?
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
i generally sympathize with this resignation. but i'm continually heartened with the swing of the pendulum. the supremacist neocon mentality is at its height i think, with its current dominance of the newsmedia and US politics. you hear a lot about the pendulum swing now with Soros and the Dean campaign, and the worries about a leftie "Goldwater backlash". but one difference is that unlike then, there is a very loud "international community" voice now and it is incredibly anti-Bush/neocon/USA. when has the US' Left had such overwhelming world convergence? if you watch Fox News closely enough you can see it sweating. with dominance comes complacency.
---- "Stank you smelly much."
... as someone said once.
... all the while being closely filmed by the BBC, CNN and other world news casters, who'd been there for the past 2 days waiting for them ... the other fun thing to watch was the Coca Cola machines being unloaded :-)
... and hence know a lot of dirty tricks, you think that in the hypothetical situation of the US vs EU that the EU members would fight fair ?
:-)
Although no-one can argue against the fact that the US has a huge war machine, lots of people can argue the fact that the US military (as a whole) is not that well trained.
Having lived on a couple of NATO bases over the years and seen the way various nationalities interact (both in social and military gatherings) the US has always been the butt of many a joke, jibe and fear (from "friendly fire")
A good example was during the first Gulf conflict, the US army arriving by landing craft onto a beach and "occupying" said beach
Of note the training the pilots gets seems lower than what other countries give (ie. get permission to blast something rather than blast it and then find out it was actually a bunch of italians or canadians or some other poor bugger allied to the US)
I think the US (and it's people) needs to realise that a) the rest of the world exists outside of TV and b) the rest of the world has been fighting wars for a lot longer than the USA has been in existance
Ah well, maybe a big wall could be built around the US, they'd be quite happy in there by themselves and the rest of the world could breath easier
Hypocrisy? I don't think that's what's at issue here. I pay my government to be concerned only with those issues that effect me directly.
I don't know enought about the situation with the IRA and England enough to comment on the funding of terrorists by the US government. (I don't completely doubt it, since we've funded plenty of terrorists before, but I don't see what we had to gain from funding the IRA.)
However, while I do believe that terrorism is a fundamentally discusting prospect, I do *not* expect my government to take action unless that terrorism is directed against Americans. It's true that the American government has only taken a serious issue with terrorism recently. And that's exactly as it should be. If it's not in your citizen's best interest to support the US government in it's terrorism crusade, then your government shouldn't agree to help.
(On a side note, while I mention the terrorism crusade... please don't count Iraq in that crusade. I couldn't apologize enough for that tyranny.)
Do you here that? That's the sound (and smell?) of the entire (vocal) slashdot community talking out of its ass. None of you have a fucking clue what your talking about. Particularly those of you who've been modded to a 5.
The article is heresay. What is the source? The reg story differs. Why is that?
And what's with the U.S. bashing? The U.S. GAVE the world GPS... and your bitching?
Oh yeah... and to the fool who said the U.S. didn't save Europe's ass and scolded another for not knowing his history... dude. What planet are you from? Have you forgotten the cold war? What do you think would have happened if the U.S. wasn't in Europe for 50+ years? Peace? PLEASE! Do you remember the joy in Germany when the Berlin wall was torn down? Who do you think brought that about? Europe?
3cx.org - A truly bad website.
All of Europe can't collectively tell us to take a hike on this issue?
Anyway it's just foot-dragging. Ultimately people always have to adapt to new technologies... take the good with the bad, develop better missile countermeasures, etc. GPS has so many more good uses than bad.
Ummm maybe not. The rules of the sea and trade was going on long before the US. DOn't know the exact laws etc but piracy etc has been outlawed by all countries for a long time.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
This is such an obvious misinformed troll that I'm wondering why moderators haven't noticed it yet.
It is the US Army and US Air Force that provide stability in Europe.
Wake up. This was (partly) true in the cold war. Europe is very different now with Germany and France being the driving force behind the European union.
Europe has changed and luckily for the better part. For once people seemed to learn from history.
Try to get to know Europe before talking about something you have no clue about.
Notice how Sandurz only makes one appearance. Very intriguing....!
> Point 2: USA DOES remove dictators but it also
/bin/laden is a dictator? Well, he was educated by pakistan and saudi money, he got his first jobs by pakistan, he got his first equipment by pakistan and later he got a good bunch of modern equipment from the US. If you really are looking for a scapegoat, point your finger at pakistan first. Its like a kid who was risen by his father as a criminal, stealing, murdering, gets a knife from uncle sam, kills again and then uncle sam is responsible. Sound stupid? Knifes don't kill, education does.
> creates them.
> This is clearly the case with Saddam Hussein and
> Usama bin Laden, but it also extends to many
> others like Manuel Noreiga (CIA asset).
Vision impaired?
Saddam received MILLIONS of tons of sowjet equipment FOR FREE. Even in thist years war 90% of Saddams Army used rusty SOWJET equipment. Saddam is/was an socialist/stalinist leader, not a capitalist/faschist one. Only five to ten years later western powers tried to buy goodwill by SELLING some 10.000 tons of equipment but as it didn't work out like expected they stopped delivering some years later while the sowjet-union delivered still MILLION TONS FOR FREE.
> Point 3: Helping to resolve conflicts? Do you
> even know what happened in Bosnia?
Yepp, yugoslawia was only three hours away and I myself even speak a bit of their language (ok, mostly about alcoholic brewege) and have friends there.
> The actions of NATO actually accelerated the
> genocide.
Please explain as I think you are totally wrong.
> The Croats were committing mass atrocities
> similar to the Serbs yet how come very few even
> say anything?
The war-tribunal told 90% of killings was done by serbs, 5% by croats and 5% by muslims. I never saw a serb refugee, but we had around TWO MILLION refugees alone in germany from croatia and bosnia, most if not all beeing croats or muslims. The serbs had tanks, airplanes, helicopters, artillery and they used it. While some of their points where correct they did numerous times criminal wrong things and instead of accepting international help they acted like a strong man which they obviously were only while shelling bosnian cities with artillery and killing 200.000 civilians in a most disgustingly public way of powerdemonstration. I might add that their enemies also killed 20.000 civilians, but at least those enemies stopped fighting when ordered by the UN and they didn't kill in such a stupid public demonstration of power.
> As far as the Isreali/Palestinian conflict is
> concerned, USA really isn't helping it now.
I can't tell a lie, the best way to help in this case would be to nuke both. Problem solved.
> The US govt is so biased towards Isreal that it
> will be a miracle if anyone signs any peace
> agreement that USA puts forth.
Maybe its the palestinian extremists request to dissolve the nation of israel before stopping fighting. A good healthy carpet-bombing with nukes would obviously shut up both.
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
1. The US involvement in WWI was minimal. Just look at the history of that conflict - the US didn't show up until after the majority of the fighting had been done, and played only a token role in the few battles that took part on the western front after it joined the war.
2. The number of US troops in Europe during WWII only exceeded that of Britain in late 1944, well after D-Day and well after the war in Europe became a forgone conclusion.
Did the US "save" Europe from Nazism? Well, it helped but don't kid your self that Britain, Russia, Canada, etc couldn't have defeated Hitler eventually if the US had continued its isolationist policy. Lest you forget, the US didn't declare war on Germany, it was Germany that declared war on the US.
And, as another poster pointed out, the key turning point of WWII in Europe wasn't D-Day, it was Stalingrad. Before Stalingrad, Germany had never retreated. After Stalingrad, that's all it did, mainly due to the huge sacrifices made by the Russian Army and the Russian people.
3. Involvement in the former Yugoslavia wasn't restricted to the US. NATO and UN both operated in that conflict, and soldiers and peacekeepers from just about every major country in Europe played their part. And unlike the US, those European nations weren't afraid to commit troops on the ground.
Just because the only coverage you saw on CNN was of various missions performed by the USAF (alongside the RAF, etc) that doesn't negate the efforts of those other nations and their servicemen that were involved more directly.
Please, if you're going to talk about the US rushing to the aid of its European allies, etc then at least try to be accurate. The American servicemen who served in those conflicts would be the first to acknowledge that they didn't do so alone, and that they joined the fight once it was in full swing on every occasion, so it wouldn't kill you to do the same. Revisionist statements like the ones in your post only serve to drive a greater wedge between the US and its European allies.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I don't know if you're joking around or if you're supporting my point... but... If they're dead, there is no more war with that enemy. Same thing goes if we're dead. That doesn't mean you should kill everyone that disagrees with you, it means just the ones that vow to kill you. Also... No matter how peaceful a country is, there has obviously not been "perpetual" peace in however many years man has existed... No matter how much someone has wanted peace, there's always some asshole that either has decided to hate you or just wants your land/money/culture/people/whatever...
Oh yeah, sorry about the typo.
I have woken up. There are simply too many forces at work against the EU for it to succeed. Europe's issues are the same as they have been for the last thousand years, and Europe is destined to screw it up again.
1. The only reason the Franco - German alliance is working right now is because Schroeder is giving away the store. Were it not for Bush driving France and Germany to unite, the EU would have broken down already. Schroeders reforms are seen as a joke and France's economy is a joke.
2. Europe's rosey picture must be tempered by some very hard and very real demographic realities. The european birth rate is not nearly enough to sustain any meaningful economic growth. Germany's population will be half of what it was some 50 years from now, and France will not be so far behind. In the long run, the vision of the United Europe leading the world (instead of the United States), fails because there will not be any Europeans left!
3. Russia vs Germany + France for economic dominance. A Europe of the future is a Europe dominated by Russia. Given that the French and the Germans have spent the better part of 300 years viewing Eastern Europe in general and Russia in particular as "lesser", it seems unlikly to me that such an ascension will come without tension.
4. The bomb. Right now Europe is living under the threat of an American nuclear counterattack against anyone that would threaten it. But, without the United States (if the US withdrew from NATO), Germany, Poland, etc, all would need to acquire their own nuclear deterrent. Certainly the EU would have to have its own arms program.
5. A rising EU will help the USA more than it will help the Euro. That's right.
6. Turkey is a security powderkeg waiting to happen. Imagine a life some 50 years down the road with a nuclear armed islamic empire banging on the doorsteps of southern europe and the mediterranean.
This is my sig.
"What's good for General Motors is good for America." That was the insensitive horror quote when I was growing up. Today, "What's good for the United States is good for the World". **that** is why five billion people don't want the US to run the planet, turn off Galileo, control the Internet, etc.
Europe's issues are the same as they have been for the last thousand years, and Europe is destined to screw it up again.
Yeah, the last 1000 years of European history have been one big screwup: humanism, Shakespeare, democracy, the Enlightenment, capitalism, communism, quantum mechanics, navigation, cartography, modern agriculture, the age of exploration, Reformation, the industrial revolution, electromagnetism, jet propulsion, electric light, the telegraph, radio, to name just some of the many things that came out of Europe.
Yeah, but like Americans, you reach a certain point of perfection and then piss it all away in stupid wars. Look at where Europe was before World War I, and after.
This is my sig.
Europe has always had wars and political upheaval--it's part of the continent, and it may even be necessary for that kind of development. In contrast, unified nations like China were stagnant for centuries. Historically, European wars have also not been very bloody--that's a 20th century phenomenon resulting from the new technologies.
The 50 year hiatus for Europe spanning WWI and WWII is really pretty short by historical standards. And it has brought spectacular advances in its own right: political and social unification, a pan-European commitment to human rights, and a very high standard of living throughout Western Europe.
And the notion that conflict is a necessary evil is hardly particularly European. US libertarians and conservatives defend the right to bear arms based on the notion that an armed uprising is a threat that keeps government in check. And I think it was Jefferson who thought that the US should have a revolution every century or so.
The real question is: what is the world going to do now that wars have become so bloody that people can't really rise up against their governments anymore or fight neighboring countries. Are we going to find other ways of renewing our governments, social systems, and infrastructure? Or are we doomed to become as stagnant and bureaucratic like China was historically?
That is what nations do. When your nation has acheived superpower status, then we will have a discussion about how best to protect national interests abroad. In the meantime, I remain adamant that your self-professed hatred of Americans is more detrimental to humanity than the semi-coherent, cloudy, amorphous phenomenon that is known as "America". You claim that America creates terrorists. This is how I know that you are not an honorable man. A man of honor accepts responsibility for his actions. If you ask me why America makes mistakes on the world stage, I will tell you that any innovative organization will make mistakes as it attempts to break new ground. You cannot dispute that America has been the leading innovator in the world during our lifetimes. There is as much positive influence that comes from America as negative (probably more), but your need to hate someone (not blacks today, not Jews (well probably you hate Jews, too) but today, it will be Americans that you hate) is blinding you. People like you just sit around waiting for a target for your hate to present itself. America has always been big and loud, and it is more than happy to absorb your hatred, even if it means that we lose the lives of our patriots in the process. We care enough about this community over here, that we will endure the wasted souls from yours. So, pray tell, what utopian nation do you call your own. I am 99% certain that it will be continental Europe, in which case, I have a few words for you about whichever government it is you so dearly cherish.