Now, our lives are actually inseparable from GPS, from aircraft missile to online car-hailing and takeaway, GPS is needed everywhere to accurately locate and judge the location. However, although we seem to be accustomed to using "GPS" to refer to all "positioning systems", strictly speaking, GPS is just a type of global positioning system , and it belongs to the United States' global positioning system.
For a long time, the United States was "successful" because it mastered this "big killer weapon". It also envisioned "win without fighting" by cutting off GPS.
Maybe what many people didn't expect was that the US military had really done experiments to test the extent to which countries were affected after cutting off GPS, but the result made the United States call it "impossible".
GPS system, which has demonstrated its power, is a global positioning system. The United States has been developing GPS systems since the 1970s. Its GPS system has been ahead of the world for a long time. All countries have to use the US GPS system for global positioning. Therefore, we seem to be accustomed to GPS to refer to all global positioning systems. GPS's first "showing its power" was in the 1991 Gulf War. , a truly modern war, awakened the whole world and made the world realize how powerful the GPS system would be if applied to actual combat.
In the Gulf War, the US military brought out a large number of "precision guided weapons", of which 288 " Tomahawk " had a hit rate of up to 98%. This is not only a "all-round blow" of Iraqi , but also a modern war that shocked the world.
In just 42 days, the US military defeated Iraq, which had nearly 6,000 tanks, , more than 4,600 armored vehicles, and infantry fighting vehicles, as well as 30,000 artillery at the cost of 146 deaths and 467 injuries, causing the Iraqi army to pay a huge price of more than 100,000 casualties.
Even the US military attributed the success of this war to GPS, and said it was a "multiplier of military power."
At that time, the US military's GPS seemed to be the "Eye of God". It could not only detect and locate, but also guide firepower coordination and precise strikes, and even provide guidance on troops' mobilization, material support and rescue.
At that time, GPS had already played such a huge role before it was officially put into use. By the time of Iraq War in 2003, GPS was even more powerful.
Various precise guided weapons, the precise bombing of stealth bomber , and electromagnetic interference have made the entire battlefield a stage for GPS to play a role. Iraq's "million-strong army" is vulnerable to GPS and cannot organize strong resistance at all. People are still impressed by Iraq's tank force that has been transformed into scrap iron and stretched for several kilometers.
is also due to the emergence of GPS. Military experts even specially invented the term " surgical strike " to describe how accurate the strike of weapons can be under the guidance of GPS.
The more war is launched, the more the United States can recognize the importance of GPS. The United States once said that without GPS, they cannot win a war.
Because for a long time, only the United States had a global positioning system, and all countries had to use the United States' GPS system, and the United States could even use this to "control" other countries' wars. For example, if two countries are fighting, the United States can turn off some GPS based on its own wishes, so that the other party's missiles can "fly around the sky" and cannot reach the predetermined position at all.
Theoretically speaking, the United States can indeed accurately shut down GPS services in a certain area, and the operation is not too complicated. It only needs to set up a certain program to let a certain satellite shut down the service at a fixed time. However, before the third generation of GPS satellites, it took a long time to shut down GPS in a specific area.
However, if it is to "control" a war, it may be worth it to spend a little more time.
Of course, there is also a simpler operation, that is, interfere with GPS, and the same effect can be achieved.Of course, interfering with GPS signals can also be used as a "defense" measure, which can be done by countries with certain strength.
can turn off GPS, but only the United States can do it. Therefore, Americans think that they have mastered a "big killer" that can control the world and is comparable to 's nuclear weapon .
Just imagine, after the United States built the world's first "global positioning system", countries were invited to "join for free". When everyone is accustomed to using free GPS without developing it on their own, the United States can use the GPS system to stuck everyone's neck.
At that time, if the United States dislikes anyone, it will turn off the country's GPS service. Not only will the planes and cannons become "blind", but passenger civil aviation will also easily lose its direction. People may even have difficulty in taking out and taking taxis, and the whole society will be "chaotic". Isn't this more powerful than nuclear weapons?
Moreover, GPS, a "big killer", is also "environmentally friendly", and will not cause nuclear pollution to , but can also be used repeatedly, allowing all countries to "submit" to the United States.
In the positioning system, we have also suffered losses
As we all know, one of the things that our country dislikes the most is being "bottled" by the United States. There are too many things in my country that have been "bottled" in history and in the history of the development of New China, and GPS is no exception.
In many people's minds, my country has been "bottled" by the United States' use of GPS three times. The most important and most "humiliated" of my country is the Galaxy Incident.
There are many articles on the Internet that pointed out that the United States closed GPS, causing Galaxy to lose its direction at sea, so it was forced to stop the ship and was forced to board the ship and was inspected and insulted by the United States.
However, in fact, some analysts pointed out that the GPS system was only truly deployed in 1994, covering 98% of the world's regions, and was officially opened for civil use in 1996, so the Galaxy in 1993 may not have used GPS, and the United States is even more unlikely to disorient the Galaxy by turning off GPS in a direction. The reason why
rumor about GPS is circulating on the Internet is very likely because GPS has indeed caused too much shock to the people of our country, and it is also possible that the time when my country decided to launch the Beidou-1 navigation system was precisely in 1994, shortly after the Galaxy incident.
In addition, there were also rumors in the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996 and the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 that the United States deliberately closed the GPS in relevant areas, resulting in abnormalities in all satellite-guided weapons in my country, the Sino-US competition ended in my country's failure, and the plane lost its navigation and positioning during earthquake rescue, resulting in an accident that "accidentally hit the mountain".
To be fair, these are indeed just "rumors" and there is no evidence to confirm them. To a large extent, the spread of these rumors should be related to our country's in a hurry to have its own navigation system, get rid of its dependence on the United States, and enhance its own "sense of security".
However, in the global positioning system, we have really suffered losses, and what we suffer is also losses from Westerners. In fact, my country has begun to explore the development path of satellite navigation system that is suitable for my country's national conditions as early as the early 1980s.
The GPS system that showed its power in the Gulf War directly awakened us, making us deeply realize that it is really not possible to fight in the future without a positioning system. Of course, this key technology in key areas must also be in our own hands. This has the later "three-step" development plan of Beidou system .
However, although the first step of my country's Beidou system was successfully completed, my country's satellite navigation technology was still far from that of Europe and the United States. At this time, in order not to rely too much on the United States, Europe also decided to build its own satellite navigation system - the Galileo system.
But the EU Aviation Administration can only invest 600 million euros funds, and the remaining 2.4 billion euros will be raised from the whole society. In order to raise funds, EU has extended an olive branch to my country. In the end, our country decided to invest 230 million euros to participate in the development of the Galileo system.
Originally, everyone was engaged in development together, and the Galileo navigation system was likely to form a "three-legged" scene with the US GPS and the Russian Gronas . But in order to stabilize its global hegemony, the United States must not allow the EU and China to jointly develop a satellite navigation system.
Under the turmoil of the United States, the EU kicked China out of the development of the Galileo system in 2006 on the grounds of "public safety", claiming that they only allow "EU member states to participate in investment", but at this time, China had already paid the first 70 million euros.
Now, Americans are very proud. After all, the EU is short of money, China is lacking in technology, and Russia is "half-dead". No matter how you look at it, no one can "compete" with its GPS system.
But the United States has always underestimated the abilities of Chinese people. The more the United States wants to stumbling our necks, the more we are likely to burst out with greater strength and rely on ourselves to lead the world.
After completely giving up the fantasy, our country continued to build the Beidou system down-to-earth. It has never been completed by Asia-Pacific users to complete the global networking. It took us more than ten years.
On July 31, 2020, the Beidou-3 global satellite navigation system was officially launched, which can provide users with high-precision and high-reliability positioning and navigation services around the world, and also has the ability to communicate short messages.
At the same time, the Galileo system has been shelved for a long time due to the funding and use rights issues within the EU. Although the Galileo system has deployed enough satellites to achieve global positioning services, the system has failed twice. The 2019 service went down for for a week. has not yet become a stable global positioning system comparable to the GPS system. It can be said that "I got up early and rushed to the late set."
So, the key question is, has the United States achieved its goal? Now in the global positioning system, is GPS still "dominate"? Can the Beidou system, which our country has worked hard for decades, really help us get rid of our dependence on the United States? The Americans gave us answers to these questions.
The United States tested the GPS cut off, and the results surprised them. There was a news that the United States had conducted a secret experiment. They secretly cut off the GPS system's services to foreign countries to analyze how much impact other countries and regions will be affected.
Data obtained by the US military shows that the region that has been most affected by the closure of GPS services is Europe. After the US military shut down GPS, the military field has been affected by up to 56%.
Actually, this is not difficult to understand. After all, on the one hand, the EU's own Galileo system is not powerful and it is still in a mess; on the other hand, the EU has been deeply influenced and restrained by the United States, and it is normal to be affected the most.
Moreover, due to the frequent failures of the Galileo system, even Europeans themselves "lost confidence" in the system and do not serve well in the civilian field. How could Europeans feel at ease in such a field that requires higher accuracy in the military field?
The "old rival" of the United States was also affected by as much as 34%.
Actually, this is not surprising. After all, the GLONAS navigation system used by Russia was developed during the former Soviet Union. After the collapse of , Russia continued to develop it.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia spent a long time in order to stabilize its own social and economic problems, which of course also delayed the R&D progress of Gronas.
Nowadays, although the GLONAS system has been officially operated worldwide, its positioning accuracy is only 1.5 meters, and the technology in other aspects is not too advanced and cannot be compared with the United States.
, however, since the outbreak of regional conflicts, due to concerns that the United States will propose a GPS system, Russian State Space Corporation has proposed a technical solution to replace GPS with GLONAS.
Moreover, the GLONAS system can also receive signals from the Chinese Beidou system to minimize the impact of GPS shutdown.
Obviously, if the US military wants to do another experiment, they will find that the GPS system has a smaller impact on Russia.
What surprised Americans the most was that shutting down the GPS system had a potential actual impact on the Chinese military by only 8%. That is to say, even if the United States suddenly cuts off the GPS system, it will not have much impact on our country. The result of
made the United States call it "impossible". But the United States should also recognize that compared with the United States' GPS system, my country's Beidou system still has some advantages.
For example, my country's Beidou system has 3 geostationary orbit satellites, which can enhance signals, transmit short messages, and actively locate them; for example, the tilted geosynchronous orbit satellite can make up for the problem of weak signals in high latitude areas, and can receive relatively strong signals no matter where they are.
Moreover, my country's Beidou satellite system has been open to the world for free. Currently, more than half of the countries around the world use the Beidou navigation system, because the US GPS system is operated by the US Air Force and often restricts users from using the system, which has caused concerns among countries. China will not control satellite signals, which can make all countries more confident in using them.
More importantly, media reports said that the US military U-2 reconnaissance aircraft has used Beidou satellite navigation system as a backup system for use when GPS fails. It can be seen that my country's Beidou system is receiving more and more recognition, Therefore, we are least affected by GPS shutdown, so there seems to be nothing to be surprised.
After all, with the continuous improvement of my country's satellite technology, we will be less and less affected by the United States in the future, and the United States will no longer be able to use GPS to make a fuss or threaten us.
