Foreign Intelligence

To this date, the modern realm of international relations has not changed as much as some scholars would have us believe. While the United States retains the glory of being the world’s only superpower, the future of this prestigious status is being seriously challenged. Over the past few years, the European Union has instituted its own monetary system, solidified political partnerships, created a strong cultural and geographical fortification and started construction of the Galileo Satellite Navigation System. Galileo is a navigation system composed of 30 independent Medium Earth Orbit satellites plus 9 geostationary regional augmentation satellites. As such, the proposed system could easily be designed to outperform the 24 satellites in the Global positioning system. Galileo should seriously loosen the U.S military’s de facto hold on the viability of most of the economies of the industrialized actions. However, some aspects of the system’s planned frequency configuration should alarm all Americans because Galileo’s frequencies can also be used to coordinate simultaneous missile attacks upon any nation on earth.

While Europe attempts to recover from exposure to a claim of massive fraud in the program, the United States must take a closer look at the Galileo project in order to determine what the proper response must be, should Europe recover from the setback. Although vehemently denied for years, even by the State Department, documents have long revealed that the unelected European Commission has been forming a coherent “Galileo Pact” with nations such as Russia, China, India, and Brazil.

Galileo could easily become available to anyone as a temporary, if not permanent, “backbone” architecture for worldwide military enhancements. Europe’s main ‘defense contractors (most of which have recently been bought out by the French government and French private industries) stand to gain tremendous amounts of money from missile navigation services and arms proliferation. The laws pertaining to the – subject are secret even to the highest democratically elected leaders of Europe (see Heidi Hautala v. Council).

Consistent with the inherent right of self-defense provided for explicitly in Article 51 of the UN Charter, it is probable that the United States will develop countermeasures for Galileo in order to defend its global interests from armed attack. During last year’s State of the Union address, for example, President Bush alluded to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Interestingly, the same French controlled companies that will be building Galileo, and have ‘accidentally’ allowed their missiles into Iraq, became the top bidders for our National Missile Defense Shield.

If the U.S. “plays by the rules,” the “Galileo Pact” could break the virtual GPS monopoly in the satellite navigation industry and provide the world with a degree of independence that it does not enjoy today. Ultimately, Galileo will give its controllers a tremendously useful tool for the enforcement of a new-age foreign policy, but it could also cause the “power pendulum” to begin its swing away from U.S. hegemony.