Our ability to locate ourselves on planet earth is rapidly developing, and becoming a source of great potential revenue. Alongside the US Global Positioning System (GPS), soon the Russian GLONASS system will have global coverage, leaving the EU's expensive and long-delayed Galileo Satellite System, and China's COMPASS programme, well behind.
GPS
GPS, established by the US Department of Defense in 1973, has become the default provider of civilian and military location, communication and guidance technology worldwide. The one downside, from the point of other sovereign nation states, is that GPS is essentially still owned and operated by the US government and military, and could be switched off should any conflict break out. Any potential enemy could find themselves without navigation capabilities if they faced US forces, while tight export controls limit the ability of other states to purchase GPS technology for military uses.
GLONASS
Also originating in the Cold War, is the Russian GLONASS system. Brezhnev ordered this system to ensure the Soviet Union's ability to pin-point Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) would be second to none. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ten years of crisis, GLONASS became a Putin priority in the last decade. His vision of 'Sovereign Democracy' calls for Russia to be a completely free and independent actor in international relations, and GLONASS increases the Russian ability to project power considerably.
Thankfully, the need to launch ICBMs at other nations has reduced since the 1970s, but now the Kremlin has realised that GLONASS has immense money-earning capabilities. The telecoms and broadcast industries offer huge markets, and products that combine GPS and GLONASS to deliver millimetre-perfect positioning have huge revenue potential. Close friendships with India, potentially soon the worlds largest market, and the ability to earn vast sums and control its own domestic telecoms market, has convinced the Kremlin that GLONASS is worth the investment.
GLONASS currently has 21 satellites and good coverage only in the Northern Hemisphere. The system requires three more, and when in place, combined with heavy taxation for GPS-only products, the Russian government hopes to shift the usage and number of GLONASS systems from the present (under 50,000, most of them used by the Russian state), to take most of the market in Eur-Asia from GPS. To achieve this, Russia is building a new launch-pad for rockets that is firmly on Russian territory (the present location, formerly in the Soviet Union, is now in Kazakhstan).
Galileo
And then there is the European Union. Originating in the 1990s, the idea for an EU project grew and received funding from the Commission and European Space Agency. However, when the private consortium developing the project hit problems in 2007, Brussels swooped like a vulture and took complete control of the project.
Inheriting infrastructure from the Western European Union organisation, Brussels is developing the European Satellite Centre into a provider of analysed satellite imagery for support to EU operations under the Common Foreign and Security Policy. And yes, this does mean taxpayer money is funding wasteful duplication of what some member states and private companies can already do. With the private sector, such as Google Earth, already providing high-quality satellite imagery, and the range of public sector organisations, from GCHQ through to RAF Menwith Hill all providing similar capabilities, one has to ask firstly, what does the European Satellite Centre contribute to British security that we do not already have, and secondly, is it wise to continue allowing the Commission to state-build with British taxpayers money, as the UK's own defence budget is reduced.
Second Agency
There is another Agency also developing Galileo: the European Global Navigation Satellite System Supervisory Authority, which manages the funding, research and development aspects of Galileo. This Agency lacks the military dimension of the Satellite Centre, but with the Galileo deadline (around 2014 for it to be operational) approaching, this Agency will likely see its budget and staffing needs demand increases in the money it draws from the EU budget, and subsequently, from us.
Likely to come with a cost to taxpayers of over £3 billion when finally finished, Galileo, whilst potentially providing an even more precise system than GPS, has further damaged relations with the US. Firstly there were flirtations with partnerships with China in developing the system, until China chose to develop its own COMPASS programme. And then, after September 11th 2001, Washington asked the EU to reconsider its plans, as the project would help potential terrorists to strike at the US. The EU chose to continue, but under consistent US pressure, compromised Galileo's capabilities to ensure that in the event of any conflict, the US would maintain technological superiority against any enemy using Galileo or GPS.
How useful?
As such, one wonders why Galileo is needed at all. If it will be subject to US pressure, and as its costs are measured in billions, not millions, why does the EU feel the need to develop this? GLONASS, the Russian system, is also independent and almost fully completed. If the EU really believed in its 'soft power', the Commission would be pressing the Russian government to become more democratic and improve human rights in exchange for the EU using GLONASS. To have the European market using GLONASS would be a prize the Kremlin could not ignore.
However, this would not further the stated aims on the website of the GNSS Supervisory Authority, to achieve “European independence”, a goal justified by the theoretical point that GPS and GLONASS could both in the event of a major war be switched off. With France, for a long-time pushing to increase its power via Europe, offering most of the drive behind Galileo, the British taxpayer is once again funding French and Europhile dreams whilst our own defence capabilities are being reduced.
