[r0h1n]

Comment is against the larger point being made in the article, and I quote:

>“They don’t want to be reliant on the American system and believe that their systems, like GPS, will spawn other industries and applications,” said a former senior official in the State Department’s Office of Space and Advanced Technology. “They feel as though they are losing a technological edge to us in an important market. Look at everything GPS has done on things like your phone and the movement of planes and ships.”

> The Russian effort is part of a larger global race by several countries — including China and European Union nations — to perfect their own global positioning systems and challenge the dominance of the American GPS.

[nraynaud]

For example France doesn't rely on GPS for military purpose, mostly using inertial positioning systems that drift and require re-calibration. (sometimes with dramatic effects like when 2 soldiers got killed in the wrong country in Africa because they had drifted)

There is a giant network of ground stations around the world so that french submarine can re-calibrate their positioning system periodically. It's a unique solution that only works when you have territories all over the world, since you don't want to position your nuclear power with a foreign system.

[dingaling]

The French military have plenty of reliance on Navstar GPS; for example the AASM munitions used over Libya and Mali have GPS as a primary mode and INS, IIR or laser as secondary options.

[nraynaud]

Yeah, I was wrong to exclude everything, sorry. As part of NATO, the GPS is used for some stuff. It CAN be completely disabled would have been a more accurate description.