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

[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............

[LittleGrizzly]

3. we would have less clout in the world were we part of federal europe because our differing opinion would be drowned out among the need for a consensus opinion, whereby we are only 60m voices in 350m rather one of five UNSC votes.

I think i worded my answer badly.

What i meant to say was that you seem to agree there would be more power there overall...

But your defining the clout as our say in this increased power, whilst i seperated into 2 different categorys, clout as in just how many solidiers guns tanks ect. and then how much say we have, being our ability to have the army do what britian (or the british) wants it to do...

Basically i think we sidetracked off into an argument over semantics instead of an actual issue... as we both (seem to ?) agree there would be a bigger more powerful army but britian would have less control over it...

5. by devolution i mean the devolving of powers generally

I can agree to local control being a better option in some areas

not the welsh/scottish woody with rediscovering their current self.

Something else we can agree on, seems nothing more than a pointless exercise in patriotism

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

Was this aimed at my american culture post ? and if so I don't quite understand what you are trying to say...

[Furunculus]

1. I think i worded my answer badly.
What i meant to say was that you seem to agree there would be more power there overall...
But your defining the clout as our say in this increased power, whilst i seperated into 2 different categorys, clout as in just how many solidiers guns tanks ect. and then how much say we have, being our ability to have the army do what britian (or the british) wants it to do...
Basically i think we sidetracked off into an argument over semantics instead of an actual issue... as we both (seem to ?) agree there would be a bigger more powerful army but britian would have less control over it...

2. Was this aimed at my american culture post ? and if so I don't quite understand what you are trying to say...

1. this is not about the strength of military, rather what constitutes a strategic priority and how much weight should be thrown into achieving that priority.
an example of which could be iraq, i.e. the UK considered it a strategic priority to neutralise the threat represented by iraq, and was prepared to go to war to achieve that end if need be.

2. yes, to whit:

that cannot be said of the EU's current attempt to artificially homogenize 30 different countries, with 29 different languages, 28 distict cultural histories, 4 wildly different prevailing political philosphies, 3 different structures of basic law, two different extremes on the acceptance of social justice, two different extremes of the idea of freedom of speach/liberty, and one almighty sense of their own individual place in history resulting from the last millenia of evolution of the modern nation state!

3. and the idea that a useful and successful federated europe could be created presupposes that idea that this is in fact what all the member states want, something that has thus far not been demonstrated.