Port 80

I have never been a particular fan of France’s foreign policy. However, the latest display of Gallic gall is utterly breathtaking.

BEIJING, March 16 (Reuters) - China and France held joint naval exercises for the first time on Tuesday, four days before Beijing’s rival, Taiwan, holds presidential elections.

Chinese and French helicopters landed on board each other’s warships off the mainland’s eastern coast in what China’s Xinhua news agency called the “largest-scale joint drill held by Chinese and foreign navies”. …

French President Jacques Chirac, keen to strengthen ties with China and win French business a firm footing in the rapidly growing market, sided with China in January in opposing Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian’s plan to hold a referendum on missile defence alongside presidential elections on March 20.

Let me restate that, just so the facts are on the table: A Western democracy has just used its military to intimidate another democratic nation in support of a Communist dictatorship. This follows on the heels of Chirac’s statement in January that any referendum that changed the status quo would be “irresponsible.” This is what “Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood” has come to: a declaration that it is irresponsible for a nation to decide, through a free election, that it doesn’t wish to be part of a dictatorship with expansionist tendencies and no respect for human rights.

I wish I could say that this was unprecedented behavior from the French, or from any other Western democracy. Unfortunately, the Czechs learned in 1938 what happens to small nations when the French begin negotiating with dictators over your fate. Let us hope that the French come to their senses and recall the events of the 1940s before they start working to translate the Munich Pact into Chinese.

Update

Wretchard over at the Belmont Club is drawing the same analogy, but with regards to the Spanish election, not France. Isn’t it wonderful how countless members of the blogosphere can read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and figure out that appeasement fails, but much of the population of Europe cannot? Spain and France were both ruled by Fascists not to long ago — it would behoove them to examine how exactly dictators operate. (And, in all fairness, some of the Spanish get it, but many do not.)

3/21/2004: Updated again to fix a typo and to improve the accuracy of my reference to Chirac’s statement on the “irresponsible” nature of the Taiwanese referendum.

My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time…
Go home and get a nice quiet sleep. — Neville Chamberlain, 30 September 1938

The last time I blogged (which was entirely too long ago), I wrote about the possibilities of a Chinese-EU partnership in the GALILEO satellite navigation system. None of the possibilities have been good, but with China’s recent demonstration of its space-launch capability, a substantially worse possibility has appeared: The destruction of the GPS system in the event of conflict between the US and the PRC.

The problem with GPS is that, although it’s a wonderful system, there are only 24 satellites in orbit. While this is a relatively large number, it is still a finite number, and vulnerable to ASAT [Anti-satellite weaponry] programs, which China is pursuing. (Astute readers will note that the linked article estimated the earliest Chinese manned spaceflight as occurring in 2005. Adjust your estimates of ASAT availability accordingly.) Furthermore, China (or any other aggressor) would not have to kill every GPS satellite to greatly impede US military operations. The GPS system requires multiple satellites overhead to give a position reading to a user. By simply bringing down a sizable portion of the GPS network, China could create “outages” in the GPS system - temporary holes in satellite coverage over particular regions.

While the US could probably fight a war without GPS, it would be a sharply different kind of war than we have become accustomed to over the past several years. The JDAM precision bombs that have seen so much use in Iraq and Afghanistan are guided by GPS signals, and would become unusable during periods of GPS outages. While laser-guided weapons are still an option, they are more limited than the JDAM in that their target must be illuminated by a laser designator - a difficult task through cloud cover or smoke. Weapons aside, the loss of GPS makes navigation - for aircraft, ground units, and naval vessels - a serious issue. It is entirely possible to navigate without GPS (contrary to the beliefs of some outdoorsmen), but the task becomes more difficult and less accurate.

Prior to the advent of GALILEO, the vulnerabilities of GPS were something of a moot point - while China might be able to destroy the GPS system, China would be handicapped by its destruction along with the United States, if not to the same degree. However, if China uses the GALILEO system for satellite navigation, the destruction of GPS would have no impact on Chinese operational capability. This is especially true if the current plans to make GALILEO interoperable with GPS fall through - the result would be a Chinese military using GALILEO-only receivers, and a US military using GPS-only receivers.

Europe’s participation in GALILEO makes an attack on GPS especially tricky, as the United States cannot simply attack the GALILEO network in retaliation. To do so would not only cut off Chinese access to satellite navigation, but also the access of the European Union, some of whom may be our allies in a conflict with China. Even if they are not, the diplomatic ramifications of destroying GALILEO would be exceedingly high, as the European Union will not simply “write off” multiple billions of dollars in satellites and launches.

What’s especially worrying is that this sort of tactic - dividing it’s technological base from the United States - is seeing increasing popularity in China today. In computers, China is sponsoring an Asian form of Linux at the same time that they are gaining access to the source code of Windows. (Bear in mind that Microsoft officials have stated under oath that releasing the source code to Windows could compromise national security.) China has even extended this approach to processors, giving the up the x86 base common to Western computer users in favor of a homegrown V-Dragon CPU. Which is, incidentally, designed to run Linux, not Windows.

Taken together, these incidents paint a clear pattern: China is actively working to separate its technological base from that of the US. Whether this policy arises from concerns about economic dependance, or a goal of strategic independence, remains to be seen. Either way, however, this trend bears watching. China is clearly not happy with its current place in the world. Let’s hope it only asserts itself by launching taikonauts into orbit.

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.