Debates between columnists can be tiresome, but Douglas Murray writes so well that when he is wrong he is dangerous. I think he may be wrong about the European Union’s ‘Galileo’ project (‘Costs in space’, 13 November), and though bereft of his certainties, I should not let the other side to this argument go by default.
Galileo is the EU’s answer to the Americans’ Global Positioning System (GPS). It aims to do the same thing: to enable any receiver to pinpoint its position in the world very precisely. It is fair to say (as Mr Murray does) that Galileo is behind schedule and over budget. It’s also fair to say (as Mr Murray does) that when it comes to delays and overruns, the EU has a poor record. The fact that our own Ministry of Defence’s incompetence at procurement leaves Brussels standing, or that the Pentagon, too, is notorious for haywire timetabling and budgeting in grands projets at the leading edge of military and space technology, does not excuse the EU from Mr Murray’s indictments.
He makes two charges. First, he alleges that the EU is pursuing this project in a wasteful manner. Though he adduces no evidence, and I’m in no position to conduct an audit, he is probably right. Global positioning systems require multiple orbiting satellites so that, by a combination of radio trigonometry and microcomputing, a terrestrial receiver can pinpoint its position relative to three or more points in space: orbiting satellites. The computation and adjustments and the inputting of changing atmospheric data is complex. The launching and maintenance of the satellites is expensive. That is why only the US provides a 24-hour global positioning system. That such projects are intrinsically hard to cost, however, does not (I accept) exonerate the EU, an extravagant body whose self-satisfied ethos I’ve detested ever since being sent by the Foreign Office on a training course to Brussels as a young man. So I don’t quibble with Douglas Murray the auditor.
Douglas Murray the reflexive Atlantacist, however, is another matter. His second charge, that there is no need for Galileo because we can already use the American GPS system, is the charge I wish to answer.
It is perfectly true — and has never been denied — that a disinclination to rely totally on the United States for global positioning is part of the case for Galileo. It is true that France has been perhaps obsessively mistrustful of the US. But I believe the mistrust is in this case justified: not because the Americans are any less trustworthy than other nations but because they are no more trustworthy; and their global positioning monopoly gives them a formidable whip hand.
GPS was a luxury when Bill Clinton decided in 2000 to make the Pentagon’s military system available for domestic and international civilian use. It was always going to be useful, but the speed with which what was at first a range of clever gadgetry has turned into essential kit has been breathtaking. This should hardly surprise us. Just ask yourself: why wouldn’t technology that can tell anybody exactly where they are and show them how to get where they want to go, or tell them where somebody else is too, fast embed itself in modern life? From aircraft navigation, to satnav, to mapping and surveying; from fire, police and ambulance services to tunnelling and vehicle-tracking; from meteorology to precise timing; from shipping to search-and-rescue; and of course for a vital range of military applications — this has proved one of those inventions that soon causes people to wonder how we ever coped without it.
The truth is we still could. But it would take years to relearn and re-equip for a world without GPS. If America flicked the switch (which they can do by encryption, retaining access for authorised users only) modern life, even today, only 16 years after the system became operational, would come close to grinding to a halt. The range of future possibilities, meanwhile, is vast. We are entering an era when global positioning is integral to the machinery of the 21st-century state.
As with Microsoft, it is not necessary to entertain paranoid fantasies about US ensnarement to conclude that without anyone consciously aiming for this, the world has delivered itself into the effective grip of the Americans. We are quick to spot the obvious dependencies — on France, for instance, with aircraft carriers; or on the Pentagon for the use of our ‘independent’ nuclear deterrent — but much slower to identify dependencies that creep up on us in a manner no less complete for being gentle and unawares.
Plainly no nation dependent on GPS could now entertain the possibility of involving itself in military hostilities with America. How about commercial hostilities? At present it might be hard for America to disable civilian access without domestic damage, but selective jamming may offer more precise control. When we British had global predominance we used it ruthlessly, seldom needing to use the gunboats everyone knew we could deploy. Why should America be different?
Mr Murray makes the point that commercial sponsorship, supposed to help finance Galileo, has not been forthcoming. The EU should have anticipated the private sector’s response — ‘Why pay for what we get free already from the Americans?’ — but I hope it’s not overly suspicious to wonder at the open-handed way the US has never tried to charge for this expensive service. Washington’s total and immediate antipathy to European plans to develop Galileo was perhaps indicative.
Mr Murray’s wariness towards our EU allies is rational as well as patriotic. A similar wariness towards our most powerful ally, the United States, strikes me as equally rational. Is that not patriotic too?
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