citizens of EU member states - what do you think of galileo GPS competitor?

[Meneldil]

no, but the idea of the EU wishing to be an independent superpower is:
a) laughable given how low Defence spending ranks in european priorities
b) wholly undesirable to many EU nations given the level of military integration it would require
c) daft in that considering the above it manages to damage institutions that DO provide european security
thus rendering galileo a pointless vanity project, and one that has been mis-managed to the point of redundancy to boot.

The amount of military spending of members has absolutely no link whatsoever to the capability of the EU to be a superpower. In any case, the EU (read France and UK) has enough nukes to blow the crap out of anyone threatening the old continent, be it the US, Russia or China, and it will stay the same until one of them develop some badass scifi-like anti nuke technology.
Furthermore, military spendings suck, nobody except a few right wing nationalists support them, so it is fine by me. High military spendings are not a 'duty of the nation state'. Protecting citizens is a duty of the state. When there's no threat, the spending can be reduced.

There's absolutely no reason to support large military spendings in Europe right now, except if you to play the 'I've got the biggest one' game that nobody cares about anymore.

how many times of recent has britain involved itself in events that appear to be opposed by our continetal 'partners'?
you don't just opt to have a common foreign policy, you need to agree what those objectives are.

case in point; iraq, which i supported and am thus glad could not be vetoed by javier solano.

At least there's one point of agreement between us: the UK has nothing to do in the EU. I don't even know why you whined and begged so much to get in, just to whine even more once we allowed you to join the club. I say go and whine alone and stop pestering us. I'm pretty sure you could make a Britano-Polish Union of Whiners. Would probably work fairly well ;)

Now, since that seems to be pretty much the main argument you bring in, since when is military spending the first duty of the (nation? I don't see what the nation is doing there, but heh) state? It might be according to your personal but nonetheless respectable idea of the nation, but it is not according to me and to a whole lot of people.

Oh, and a few scholars of political science, history and international relations, both from the left and the right, think the Westphalian system is well, really outdated, if not already dead and burried. Actually, there's quite a lot of them, so you might want to check their work, because according to them, we're heading right into a post-Westphalian system whose caracteristics are still unclear.

But after this ranting, I have to agree on a point, and not a minor one: the EU, in its current form, smells bad. I'm all for an European con/federation of willing European countries, but the thing we have now is neither that nor a simple free market agreement. And the worse is that even European leaders don't know what the EU is going to be

If Canada tried to do it without the inherent anti-Americanism involved (yes, it is involved, and some of it is vicious), then I think a lot more people would be a little happier about it.

Oh yeah, absolutely agreed. That's why I think we should give up with the anti-americanism in Europe. While I think we should have our own 'GPS' system, the fact we reached an agreement with China tells quite a lot about the general mindset that still plagues most western european leaders.

[Sigurd]

I haven't read all posts in this thread, but I felt I had to comment on the general topic.

First and foremost the NAVSTAR GPS is an American Military system. This normally means the US military use it during military campaigns.
Having worked in Navy intelligence, I have learned that The US military has GPS jamming capability.
(We, as in the Norwegian Military, tested such a jamming system)
There is also implemented in the GPS; forced inaccuracies that can be turned off with a flip of a switch.
This is problematic as satnav programmers must implement offset algorithms to the GPS softwares and build land based correction bases for them to show true positioning which even then leads to inaccuracies.
The US military during their military campaigns will turn off this offset and most Satnavs will be useless as The Gulf War I painfully demonstrated.
In Europe, satnavs showed boats running on the shore during the Gulf War.

This might sound like a conspiracy theory but my info comes from navigation system developers working in development of Military navigation systems in Norway.

[Furunculus]

I haven't read all posts in this thread, but I felt I had to comment on the general topic.

First and foremost the NAVSTAR GPS is an American Military system. This normally means the US military use it during military campaigns.
Having worked in Navy intelligence, I have learned that The US military has GPS jamming capability.
(We, as in the Norwegian Military, tested such a jamming system)
There is also implemented in the GPS; forced inaccuracies that can be turned off with a flip of a switch.
This is problematic as satnav programmers must implement offset algorithms to the GPS softwares and build land based correction bases for them to show true positioning which even then leads to inaccuracies.
The US military during their military campaigns will turn off this offset and most Satnavs will be useless as The Gulf War I painfully demonstrated.
In Europe, satnavs showed boats running on the shore during the Gulf War.

This might sound like a conspiracy theory but my info comes from navigation system developers working in development of Military navigation systems in Norway.

first logical reason i have heard in support of an alternative GPS.

though in reality all GPS systems will be turnable off in the event of war, no great power will leave on a service that guides cruise missiles and tank brigades in the heart of its cities.

[Sigurd]

though in reality all GPS systems will be turnable off in the event of war, no great power will leave on a service that guides cruise missiles and tank brigades in the heart of its cities.

Having more than one system available will:

1. Make GPS navigation possible even if the Americans wages war in Langtvekkistan.
2. Disadvantage the US military GPS superiority.
3. Force the US to develop their own jamming tools for all new systems. (more workplaces).

[Furunculus]

Having more than one system available will:

1. Make GPS navigation possible even if the Americans wages war in Langtvekkistan.
2. Disadvantage the US military GPS superiority.
3. Force the US to develop their own jamming tools for all new systems. (more workplaces).

1. useful (agreed there)
2. undesirable (not something i clamour towards)
3. inevitable (but very understandable )

[LittleGrizzly]

but america is one nation composed of one culture (amercian), one language (english).

One could argue they share an american culture.. or that there are different cultures like.... texan, californian ect.

Same with britian, Welsh, Scotish, Irish North Enlgish and south English, you could even subdivide these again, north and south wales for example...

Or you could say they all share an american culture... we all share a british culture... we all share a european culture.. its probably a very subjective way of looking at it, that you can call britian and america one culture but think europe is something completely different, theres just varying degrees of difference, the level of difference in culture doesn't change a great deal between a united britian and a united europe...

I guess my point is that there isn't the same culture and then a different culture like an on off switch, theres degress of seperation rather than a solid point beyond which people have a different culture... and i don't see the huge difference in the degrees of seperation between british and european cultures which makes the thing unworkable as you think...

GTG catch my bus from uni... hopefully i can catch up with your points sometime this year...

Try convincing some patriotic scot or welshman they don't have a different culture..

[Furunculus]

that is a marvelous way to write of the sum-total of all the differences outlined in my post above............

[Furunculus]

1. The amount of military spending of members has absolutely no link whatsoever to the capability of the EU to be a superpower. In any case, the EU (read France and UK) has enough nukes to blow the crap out of anyone threatening the old continent, be it the US, Russia or China, and it will stay the same until one of them develop some badass scifi-like anti nuke technology.
Furthermore, military spendings suck, nobody except a few right wing nationalists support them, so it is fine by me. High military spendings are not a 'duty of the nation state'. Protecting citizens is a duty of the state. When there's no threat, the spending can be reduced.

2. There's absolutely no reason to support large military spendings in Europe right now, except if you to play the 'I've got the biggest one' game that nobody cares about anymore.

3. At least there's one point of agreement between us: the UK has nothing to do in the EU. I don't even know why you whined and begged so much to get in, just to whine even more once we allowed you to join the club. I say go and whine alone and stop pestering us. I'm pretty sure you could make a Britano-Polish Union of Whiners. Would probably work fairly well ;)

4. Now, since that seems to be pretty much the main argument you bring in, since when is military spending the first duty of the (nation? I don't see what the nation is doing there, but heh) state? It might be according to your personal but nonetheless respectable idea of the nation, but it is not according to me and to a whole lot of people.

5. Oh, and a few scholars of political science, history and international relations, both from the left and the right, think the Westphalian system is well, really outdated, if not already dead and burried. Actually, there's quite a lot of them, so you might want to check their work, because according to them, we're heading right into a post-Westphalian system whose caracteristics are still unclear.

6. But after this ranting, I have to agree on a point, and not a minor one: the EU, in its current form, smells bad. I'm all for an European con/federation of willing European countries, but the thing we have now is neither that nor a simple free market agreement. And the worse is that even European leaders don't know what the EU is going to be

1. but it does, because violence is the ultimate political sanction.
military spending is a necessity..... if you believe war is not gone from this world and that your nations first duty is the protection of its citizens.

2. what is large military spending? i ask that the NATO standard at least be adhered to which is a mere 2% of GDP, though i expect the UK to succeed that which must make me one of those right wing crazies.

3. fair point about britain in europe, you continetal types must be heartily sick of hearing brits whinge about the EU, and i have been the first to advocate exiting pronto and letting you guys get on with your federation without continual hindererance from the UK. i guess we whinge about it because there isn't a mainstream political party we can turn to to express our displeasure, and we hope that the volume of our noise will distract our politicians from their rapt gaze into the EU's navel.

4. fair enough.

5. scholars have always been dreaming up new political systems, and a post westphalian world must indeed look to be an attractive concept to powerless nations that have spent the last 350 years getting trampled, but it makes little sense for nations that have successfully maintained that balance of power and survived the traumas inflicted on less effective neighbours.

6. its not that a federal europe is necessarily bad, but it serves the UK no benefit to be in it, and until we can persuade our politicians of the fact i guess we shall shout from the rooftoops. :)