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This is not good news: EU and China are set to collaborate on GALILEO. For those who are not familiar with the GALILEO program, it is a planned European equivalent to the US Global Positioning System (GPS). The European Union has long been touting this system as a solution to American control of satellite navigation systems, which they feel is a real and immediate problem given the criticality of GPS in numerous civilian and military ventures. To quote a technical paper from the GALILEO project, entitled The European dependence on US-GPS and the GALILEO initiative:

The fact is that the US not only controls the GPS infrastructure and operations, but also control the users who can have access to it. The US is therefore in control of the current and future performance of GNSS [Global Navigation Satellite System] and the timing of changes to this performance. This may not be consistent with the requirements of Europe. As our economic dependence on GPS grows, Europe can be held to ransom on all issues related to its use of GPS and might be obliged to pay governmental levies to the US in the future. Europe cannot accept this.

This is a fair enough statement — The US has long tried to maintain ownership over critical elements of its infrastructure in this way, and I certainly don’t begrudge the European Union doing the same. It is the introduction of China into this equation that is worrisome.

It seems reasonable to guess that China is investing in this system for the same reason as the European Union — namely, they want freedom from possible US limits on GPS. But, if China is trying to gain freedom from the US, why immediately hand over part of that freedom to the EU? And likewise, why does the EU think it worthwhile to hand over part of its freedom to China? While mere cost may be a factor, there is no doubt that both sides have considered the strategic implications of this deal carefully. Given that, the only possible explanation is that both the EU and China have decided that they are less likely to have a falling out with each other than with the United States.

This is not good for the United States. Right off the bat, this tells us that we will have little or no support from Europe if China attempts to forcefully reunify Taiwan with the mainland. This is one of the more likely scenarios that would cause the US to attempt to limit China’s GPS access, and the Chinese no doubt considered it when buying into GALILEO. The same goes for almost any other military action involving China.

Depending on how operational control of the system is divided, this may also give China an excellent club to use against the EU if the EU wishes to take military action which China does not support. Although GALILEO is intended to be interoperable with GPS, the details of this interoperation are still in flux. If the EU militaries standardize on GALILEO-only positioning systems, they will become vulnerable to Chinese manipulation of the GALILEO system. (The GPS system is solely under American control precisely to avoid vulnerabilities such as these.)

The EU is eager to disassociate themselves from American dependencies and influences, and to establish themselves collectively as a world power. I simply hope that this eagerness hasn’t caused the EU to make themselves vulnerable to the People’s Republic of China in a way they had not anticipated. Trusting the wrong friend with a vital asset can easily prove deadlier than not having that asset at all.

As a fairly right-wing Catholic, I often find myself coming into conflict with some of the social justice concepts promoted by some Catholic groups. While fighting for a living wage is laudable, I don’t support calls for a “new economic order” - based on a quick comparison between those countries that are starving (North Korea) and those that are thriving (South Korea), capitalism seems to work pretty well. Likewise, I can’t support calls to close the School of the America’s unless they are backed up with facts - such as an analysis of the percentage of all graduates involved in human rights abuses. Anecdotal evidence is worthless - if I look for organizations which have had some members involved in human rights abuses, I can make a good argument for the dissolution of the papacy. (Remember the Crusades and the Inquisition?)

As a result of this difference in opinion, I’ve been involved in more than one debate over the legitimacy of the war in Iraq. Although the war was regrettable, I think that it was both justifiable and necessary. I don’t care that Saddam might have been providing religious freedom to Christians (an argument posed by one anti-war acquaintance) — he was still murdering the Kurds, the Shias, and anyone who happened to get in his way. Weapons of mass destruction or not, the world is undoubtedly a better place now that there’s one less thuggish dictator in it.

Nevertheless, it has bothered me to no end that I could be coming from the same base of moral assumptions as those Catholics with which I so vehemently disagree. Either I was missing something fundamental in the Catechism, or someone was twisting religion to support politics. Neither of these possibilities sat well with me, and I’ve been thinking over this particular issue for a long time.

This week, I think I found part of the answer. The differences involved may be due to a difference in perspective on current events. It seems that those Catholics with which I disagree look at events and see an evil, while I look at the alternatives and see a far worse evil. This may be because I study the dark side of human history — wars, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and dictatorships — far more than is normal. Perhaps I have become desensitized to minor evils — when there are debates over illicit nuclear weapons programs in North Korea and Iran, I really can’t find the energy to care about Laci Peterson and Kobe Bryant. A murder and a rape simply don’t register very high on my scale of personal evil.

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