Nowadays, our lives are inseparable from GPS. From airplanes missiles to online ride-hailing and takeout, GPS is needed for precise positioning and location determination. However, although we seem to be accustomed to using "GPS" to refer to all "positioning systems", strictly speaking, GPS is only a type of global positioning system , and it is a global positioning system belonging to the United States.
For a long time, the United States was "complacent" because it had mastered this "big killer". It even imagined "victory without a fight" by cutting off GPS.
What many people may not have expected is that the US military has actually conducted experiments to test the extent of the impact on various countries after cutting off GPS, but the results made the United States call it "impossible."
The powerful GPS system
GPS is the global positioning system. The United States has been developing GPS systems since the 1970s. Its GPS system has been leading the world for a long time. All countries have to use the U.S. GPS system to conduct global navigation. Positioning, therefore, we seem to have become accustomed to GPS referring to all global positioning systems. The first time
GPS "showed its prowess" was during the 1991 Gulf War. , a truly modern war, has awakened the whole world and made the world realize how powerful the GPS system can be if applied to actual combat.
In the Gulf War, the US military produced a large number of "precision-guided weapons", of which 288 " Tomahawks " had a hit rate as high as 98%. This was not only an "all-round attack" on Iraq , but It is a modern war that has shocked the whole world.
In just 42 days, the US military defeated nearly 6,000 tanks , more than 4,600 armored vehicles and infantry fighting vehicles, and 30,000 artillery pieces at the cost of 146 killed and 467 injured. Iraq, the Iraqi army paid a huge price of more than 100,000 casualties.
Even the US military attributes the success of this war to GPS, saying it is a "multiplier of military power."
At that time, the US military's GPS was like the "eye of God". It could not only conduct reconnaissance and positioning, but also guide firepower coordination, precision strikes, and even guide troop 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 2003 Iraq War , GPS was even more powerful.
Various precision-guided weapons, stealth bombers precision bombing, electromagnetic interference , have made the entire battlefield a stage for GPS to play its role. Iraq's "million-strong army" is vulnerable to GPS and cannot be organized at all There was strong resistance, and even to this day, people are still deeply impressed by the Iraqi tank troops that were turned into scrap metal and stretched for several kilometers.
It is also because of the emergence of GPS that military experts even invented the term " surgical strike " to describe how accurate weapons can strike under the guidance of GPS.
The more wars are launched, the more the United States realizes the importance of GPS. The United States once said that without GPS they could not win even a war.
Because for a long time, only the United States had a global positioning system, and all countries had to use the American GPS system. The United States could even use this to "control" wars in other countries. For example, if two countries are at war, the United States can turn off part of the GPS according to its own will, allowing the other party's missiles to "fly all over the sky" and not be able to reach the intended location at all.
In theory, the United States can indeed shut down the GPS service in a certain area accurately, 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 turn off the GPS in a specific area.
However, if it is to "control" a war, it may be worth spending more time.
Of course, there is also a simpler operation, which is to interfere with the GPS, which can also achieve the same effect.Of course, interfering with GPS signals can also be used as a "defensive" measure, and any country with certain strength can do it.
can turn off GPS, but only the United States can do it, so Americans think they have a "big killer" that can control the world and is as powerful as the nuclear weapon .
Just imagine, after the United States built the world's first "Global Positioning System", it invited all countries to "join for free". When everyone is accustomed to using free GPS without developing it themselves, the United States can use the GPS system to block everyone. neck.
When the time comes, the United States will shut down the country’s GPS service if it doesn’t like it. Not only will the aircraft and artillery be “blind”, but the passenger and civil aviation will also easily lose their way, and it may even become more difficult for people to take out food or take a taxi. , the entire society will be "chaotic". Isn't this more powerful than nuclear weapons?
Moreover, the "big killer" of GPS is also "environmentally friendly". It will not cause nuclear pollution and can be used repeatedly, forcing all countries to "surrender" to the United States.
We have also suffered losses in the positioning system.
As we all know, one of the things our country dislikes the most is being "stuck" by the United States. In the history of and the development history of New China, our country has been "stuck" by too many things, and GPS is no exception.
In the minds of many people, our country has been "stuck" by the United States using GPS three times. The most important and most "humiliating" for our country is the Galaxy incident.
There are many articles on the Internet that pointed out that the United States turned off the GPS and caused the Galaxy to lose its way at sea. It was forced to stop the ship and was forced to board the ship for inspection and humiliation by the United States.
However, in fact, some analysts pointed out that the GPS system was only completed in 1994, covering 98% of the world, and was officially opened to civilian use in 1996. Therefore, the Galaxy in 1993 may not have used GPS. It is even less likely that the United States will disorient the Galaxy by turning off its GPS.
The reason why rumors about GPS are circulating on the Internet is very likely because GPS has really shocked our people. It may also be because our country decided to launch the Beidou-1 navigation system at the same time as the Galaxy In 1994, shortly after the incident.
In addition, during the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996 and the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, there were also rumors that the United States deliberately turned off the GPS in the relevant areas, causing abnormalities in all satellite-guided weapons in our country, the Sino-US competition ended in our country's failure, and during the earthquake rescue The "story" of an accident where the plane lost its navigation and positioning and "accidentally crashed into a mountain".
To be fair, these are indeed just "rumors" without any evidence to confirm them. To a large extent, the spread of these rumors should be related to our country's eagerness to have its own navigation system and get rid of its dependence on the United States. It is related to enhancing one's own "security".
However, we have really suffered a loss when it comes to the Global Positioning System, and it is also the Westerners' fault. In fact, as early as the early 1980s, our country had begun to explore the development path of satellite navigation system suitable for our country's national conditions.
The GPS system that showed its prowess in the Gulf War directly woke us up and made us deeply realize that it is really impossible to fight without a positioning system in future wars. Of course, the key technology in this key field must be mastered by ourselves. Here, there is the subsequent "three-step" development plan of Beidou system .
However, although the first step of my country's Beidou system has been successfully completed, my country's satellite navigation technology is still far from 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 - Galileo System.
However, the European Union Aviation Agency can only invest 600 million euros in funds, and the remaining 2.4 billion euros need to be financed from the whole society. In order to raise funds, EU extended an olive branch to my country. In the end, our country decided to invest 230 million euros in the development of the Galileo system.
Originally, everyone worked together to develop the Galileo navigation system, which is likely to form a "triple confrontation" with the American GPS and the Russian GLONASS . 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 interference of the United States, the European Union kicked China out of the development of the Galileo system in 2006 on the grounds of "public security", claiming that they only allowed "EU member states to participate in investment." However, by this time, China had already paid the first A sum of 70 million euros.
Now, the Americans are proud. After all, the EU is short of money, China is short of 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 capabilities of its people. The more the United States tries to choke us, the more likely we are to burst out with greater power and lead the world on our own.
After completely giving up its illusions, our country continued to build the Beidou system down-to-earth. It took us more than ten years from providing services to users in the Asia-Pacific region to completing the global network.
On July 31, 2020, the Beidou-3 global satellite navigation system was officially launched. It can provide users with high-precision and highly reliable positioning and navigation services around the world, all day and night, and also has short message communication capabilities.
At the same time, the Galileo system has been shelved for a long time due to internal funding and usage rights issues within the EU. Now, although the Galileo system has deployed enough satellites to enable global positioning services, the system has already experienced two failures. In 2019, the service was down for a week, and was down for a week. has still not become a stable global positioning system comparable to the GPS system. It can be said that "getting up early and catching up late."
Then, the key question is, has the United States achieved its goal? Today in the global positioning system, is GPS still the only one? Can the Beidou system that our country has worked hard for decades to complete really free us from dependence on the United States? Americans have given us answers to these questions.
The United States tested cutting off GPS, and the results surprised them.
According to news, the United States once conducted a secret experiment in which they secretly cut off the GPS system’s services to foreign countries to analyze how other countries and regions would be affected.
Data obtained by the US military shows that the region most affected by the shutdown of GPS services is Europe. After the US military shut down GPS, the military field of EU countries was affected by as much as 56%.
In fact, this is not difficult to understand. After all, on the one hand, the EU's own Galileo system is not powerful and is down; on the other hand, the EU has been deeply influenced and constrained by the United States, and it is normal for it to be the most affected. .
Moreover, due to the frequent failures of the Galileo system, even the Europeans themselves have "lost confidence" in the system, and the service in the civilian field is not very good. In fields such as the military field that require higher precision, how can the Europeans do it? Are you relieved?
The United States’ “old enemy” Russia has also been affected by the epidemic as high as 34%.
In fact, this is not surprising. After all, the GLONASS navigation system used in Russia was developed during the former Soviet Union. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, it was continued to be developed by Russia.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia spent a long time stabilizing its own social and economic problems, which of course also delayed the development progress of GLONASS.
Today, although the GLONASS system has been officially operated around the world, its positioning accuracy is only 1.5 meters, and other technologies are not too advanced and cannot compete with the United States.
However, since the outbreak of regional conflicts, because of concerns that the United States will propose it to the GPS system, the Russian National Space Group has proposed a technical plan to replace GPS with GLONASS.
Moreover, the GLONASS system can also receive signals from China's Beidou system to minimize the impact of GPS shutdown.
Obviously, if the US military conducts another experiment, they will find that the GPS system has even less impact on Russia.
What may surprise Americans most is that the potential actual impact of shutting down the GPS system on the Chinese military is only 8%. In other words, even if the United States suddenly cuts off the GPS system, it will not have a big impact on our country.
This result made the United States call it "impossible." But the United States should also recognize that my country's Beidou system still has some advantages over the United States' GPS system.
For example, my country's Beidou system has three geostationary orbit satellites, which can enhance signals, transmit short messages, and actively locate; for example, tilting geosynchronous orbit satellite can make up for the problem of weak satellite signals in high latitudes. , no matter where you are, you can receive a relatively strong signal.
Moreover, my country's Beidou satellite system has been open to the world for free. Currently, more than half of the countries in the world use the Beidou navigation system. Because the U.S. GPS system is operated by the U.S. Air Force and often restricts users from using the system, it has triggered concerns of various countries. China, on the other hand, will not control satellite signals, allowing countries to use it with greater confidence.
More importantly, media reports stated that the US military's U-2 reconnaissance aircraft has used the Beidou satellite navigation system as a backup system for use when GPS fails. It can be seen that our country's Beidou system is receiving more and more recognition. Therefore, it seems no surprise that we were minimally affected by the GPS shutdown.
After all, as my country's satellite technology continues to improve, we will be less and less affected by the United States in the future. The United States will no longer be able to use GPS to make a fuss or threaten us.
