I was with a friend visiting O'hare approach control outside Chicago. As with our previous visit to the Regional air traffic control, I was there mostly to give my friend a ride. However, on this visit I asked a question when the opportunity arose
"What would you do if GPS went out, permanently?"
The whole room collectively didn't want to think about it. There doesn't appear to be a plan. We've collectively put all our eggs in one basket.
I think air traffic is probably the most resilient group - I’m surprised no one answered!
IFR was designed long before GPS and for the most part, GPS has been shoehorned into the “old” system. VORs around the country are still “primary” for navigations; airways are still primarily defined around VOR radials; and approach plates to large airports have plenty of non-GPS precision approaches. (Some smaller GA-only airfields that recently got IFR approaches might be WAAS/GPS only).
Losing GPS might increase workload for some sectors (en route sectors who won’t be able to clear aircraft direct to waypoints) but not likely TRACON who are vectoring aircraft on pre-defined approach plates.
If you pick a random commercial flight on your favourite flight tracker and check it’s route, 99% of the waypoints on it are defined as VOR intersections, not GPS coordinates. (The remaining 1% are likely en-route waypoints and not in the departure/approach area).
Also, the instrument proficiency requirements for pilots require multiple approach types to be logged every 6 months so they are definitely capable of non-GPS approaches.
The simplest solution is to simply to resurrect the Loran infrastructure that the US (and others) run until the 2000s. The Koreans have been running eLoran for a while, and the UK and France are teaming up as well:
This is not rocket surgery: a working system that can giver you continent-wide coverage can be up and running a few years, with little technical risk (there's already kit available).
Throwing some money at the problem and instructing the DOT/DHS/whomever to issue an RFI/RFP would go a long way to moving the ball forward.
For all we know that is a contingency. DoD is relatively public and transparent, but they don't reveal everything.
If that was a contingency, it would just play into the the whole cyber/information/electronic/space domains aspects of the whole "multi-domain" stuff.
Surely both China and the US have contingencies in place to try to determine if the opposing side is exploiting their PNT systems, and then figure out ways to subvert that in various ways.
GPS has been getting better over time. The newest iteration of the system supports a directional spot beam for military users with +20dB gain for theater-level jamming resistance.
A +20dB gain means that the jammer is going to need roughly 100x its current power output to maintain the same effectiveness. An adversary ramping their transmitter by this much would turn into a blazing hot target in terms of electronic warfare. There are entire classes of weapons designed to lock directly onto signals like this. The AGM-88 is an example.
A part of why GPS is such a weak point is that existing receivers out there are pretty basic. Including receivers in things like JDAMs and other PGKs.
This is even worse in Ukraine, where a lot of "precision munitions" are cobbled together from civilian parts and duct tape, jammers are cheap and plentiful, and anti-radiation missiles are unicorns.
Not as affected as it could have been, as long as it can fall back to IMU and magnetometer data. It travels too fast.
Now, does it have a semi-reliable IMU fallback? GPS jamming/spoofing detection, an IMU that survives the conditions? Classified. Best case, you can partially un-fuck the performance with just a software fix.
You fucking wish it was just a problem for the Ukrainians.
If US ever gets into a serious near-peer war, the Pentagon may have to resort to doing the same thing Ukraine does. Mass produce inferior but easy-to-scale weapons to address the growing munition shortages.
The Pentagon understands this. This is why moves are made in that direction.
And we can't trust the Pentago anymore, so the circle is completed (see the recent "Ukraine deal" which is basically just a sell-out toward the USA allying with Russia).
Nothing says "empire treating everyone else like serfs" like expecting a peace plan between two foreign nations being written in proper English and not the mother tongue of the parties involved.
Do you not see the irony in this? "The two of you should make peace in our language, or it's fake."
Even if the argument is made that the USA is involved in the war and should be a party to the plan (it "isn't", except "it is"), the peace plan should've been written in Ukrainian and Russian, and only then translated to English as appropriate.
Seriously, that this is even being considered as a detractor from peace is highly specious.
Perhaps you should point out that the language of the peace plan wasn't written in Ukrainian, translated into Russian, and then into English. That'd probably be acceptable, right?
Can you explain why you think that deal is selling out? It seems reasonable from the point of view of the United States given they don’t want to pour more money into a conflict they don’t really care too much about. Surely there are some lessons learnt from the “war on terror”
The Russians made the same argument about Ukraine's aggression at the beginning of the conflict. The entire world has been saying it about the USA's wars as well. This very mechanism of 'punishing ones enemies so they never do it again' has simply justified the atrocities; it has not ended a single damn thing.
If the USA had been punished in the same manner for its atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan, would we have had the rest of the disaster unfold?
And we see the end result of this line of thought in Gaza, where literally millions of human beings lives have been irreversibly damaged for generations, because someone decided to punish their enemy at massive scales. And as we can see in the case of Gaza, this is no guarantee of peace, whatsoever. This line of thought has led to genocide and ethnic cleansing at massive scales.
And, it simply does not work. Period. There are generations of new terrorists who want vengeance in the Gaza/Israel war, just as vehemently as Americans do, for the Ukraine/Russia war. These children will only be converted back to peace-makers if their lives are _improved_ by the peace plan, not made worse, and there is a long, long road ahead in both wars, for all parties, to attain that condition.
At some point, making peace means putting aside any aggression-based arguments and just getting on with the program to bring both sides together, to stop the fighting and start the economic unity required to keep things peaceful.
This peace plan seems like an attempt to do just that, so it should be supported. After all, it does contain triggers that will re-ignite the war machine again - and, it could be argued that should those triggers be activated, the war would be more justifiable to the world community, and those who seek a wider, escalated war against Russia, will get their fulfilment if this plan is betrayed. This peace plan would be the first step towards greater forms of punishment - but it works for both sides. If Putin violates the agreement - Russia comes under attack by the entire world. If Ukraine's leadership violates the agreement, Russia gets cart blanche to continue its dismantling of the Ukrainian state. Therefore, the peace-makers must have the reins in lieu of the warmongers, as of now.
(Disclaimer: I've read the peace plan, have Ukrainian and Russian friends in my circles who are veterans from the conflict, and their opinion is: yes, it is far past the point where the aggressive warrior narcissists need to be ignored and statesmen and diplomats need to work harder to re-establish peace between the two nations. I personally feel that this plan has to proceed, or else the entire world is going to see the conflict expand to our own borders. This means the hyper-actualisation of warrior narcissism needs to stop, and civilisation-building economic tools need to be better applied - by all parties - to ensure the region is rebuilt again. Trust must be restored through economic unity, first and foremost - that is what this plan aims to achieve.)
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars ended with the US famously achieving few to none of its long-term war goals and a huge public and international sentiment against further regime change adventures. If those resisting the US occupation had given up earlier, would the US neocon warmongers have been so thoroughly driven from power? Or would they have been emboldened by the victory and more likely to continue with their promised invasion of Iran?
Russia is a nuclear state, and will in no rational scenario ever "come under attack by the entire world" due to the inevitable consequences. On the other hand, manufacturing casus belli again and invading Ukraine in a few years is an obvious outcome.
And the argument for supporting Ukraine is not to punish anyone. It’s to avoid rewarding (and thus normalizing) aggression and the violation of territorial integrity, a core principle on which the UN is founded.
The main concept in 20th century post-ww2 international relations was the prohibition of aggression to take land. Ending 19th century concepts like “spheres of influence “ that grant “great powers” the right to change borders by force.
Incremental progress would be a peace negotiation which brings both nations back to the realm of economic exchange, and an end to the senseless mass murder of innocents.
>but my ww1!
Its the 21st Century, we are decades removed from that era.
>West will do nothing meaningful to stop them and they know it.
Because the West is guilty of far worse war crimes in the past 50 years, and the whole world knows this. To call Russia to the table for these wars, sets the precedent for other nations to do exactly the same for the USA, the UK, and their allies.[0]
Plus, there's that whole "nuclear annihilation" aspect to consider.
It's not capitulation. It is an attempt to attain peace and economic stability for the region in a way which will prevent the conflict from flaring up again in the near future.
Have you actually read the details of the peace plan, or are you going by media reports, exclusively? Be honest with yourself about this if you wish to discuss it further.
[0] I'm all for prosecution of Russian war crimes, if it leads to the exact same procedures being applied to the USA and its allies. The world is sick of war-monger nations getting away with mass murder.
>> It is an attempt to attain peace and economic stability for the region in a way which will prevent the conflict from flaring up again in the near future.
"Peace for our time!" Some people skipped history lessons. Russia is not winning the war. To give them Ukrainian capitulation is to reward for starting a war.
>> Because the West is guilty of far worse war crimes in the past 50 years, and the whole world knows this.
Typical russian whataboutism. But I bite. What crimes west did in past 30 years? Russia started war in Afghanistan, invaded Syria, Georgia, Ukraine.
>> the details of the peace plan
Nothing there about real punishment russia will get when the next invasion/annexion is going to be.
Just a reminder, russia lost to Ichkeria, signed a peace treaty with Chechen. Guess what happened next? Russians always lie.
Not the person you replied to, but this isn't constructive. Correctly pointing out hypocrisy/double standards is very pertinent to the discussion, and shouldn't be dismissed as "whataboutism". Making assumptions about someone who disagrees with you -- in this case, the assumption that he/she is a Kremlin sympathiser -- is irrelevant at best and insulting at worst.
What crimes of the West? The illegal invasion of Iraq and the murder of 5% of its population - which still suffers, day by day. The destruction of Afghanistan. The destruction of Libya. The funding and support of ISIS. The support of Israels' genocide of Gaza. Somalia. Syria. Yemen. Pakistan. Uganda. Niger. The list goes on and on, why don't you educate yourself here: https://airwars.org/
Or perhaps you think the USA is infallible and should be able to murder whoever its ruling class deems worthy.
>Nothing there about real punishment russia will get when the next invasion/annexion is going to be.
Untrue. If Russia violates the agreement, the door is open for the rest of the world to wage wholesale war on it. You clearly have not read the terms.
You're deeply concerned about US war crimes, but you support a peace deal which specifically gives amnesty for Russian war crimes?
Whataboutism leads to such odd rhetorical distractions. This isn't a deal about Gaza, Afghanistan, or Iraq, and the only reason to discuss them is to distract from Russia's military aggression.
If the USA can be granted amnesty for its war crimes, why can't other nations? /s
I'd rather see ALL war crimes prosecuted - American, Russian, Israeli, Palestinian, and on and on.
But we all know that is never going to happen for as long as the worlds biggest thug nations refuse to allow the people of the world to see such justice.
Is that something trump is saying or is that an actual fact? It's hard to tell the difference these days ... And from my stupid European mind this is not at all how things happened.
Also the conflict still didn't stop, I don't see how America is somehow more capable of doing something when they didn't do anything?
Nowhere in my comment did I say that the conflict has stopped. But Europe is the most interested party in this conflict and they haven’t come up with any reasonable proposition to end it. It’s good that someone with power is proposing something workable.
Europe's forces could probably end it in a day, I would suspect. The problem is everyone is unsure of how unstable Putin is and how he would react to several dozen bombers and cruise missiles flattening all the unfortunate Russian soldiers on the wrong side of the border.
It’s selling out the Ukranians, they didn’t get a say in the deal and Putin gets to keep his gains and at home the threat of him being overthrown is lessened. In return Ukraine gets to give up territory and reduce their readiness for the next round of war after giving Putin the chance to build up and regroup.
We have already done that, along with all the other countries who signed it. The problem is signing up for bullshit symbolic treaties that we have absolutely no intent of ever meeting the obligations. Nobody was ever actually serious that they would defend Ukraine against Russian aggression.
The "deal" is a laundry list of Putin's wants. Russia gets everything it wants and Ukraine loses everything it needs.
- Ukraine gives up everything they've lost thus far.
- Ukraine must surrender additional territory.
- Ukraine has to cull its military strength.
- It sets up Ukraine to fail to be able to defend itself when the next war begins and does nothing to prevent Russia from restarting the war.
- Russia sanctions end, Russia is invited back to the international stage without reprocussuons or restitution
- It rather grossly calls on America to invest significant money and resources in Russia's tech industry as restitution.
I've heard analysts say that Trump wants this so he can say he ended both the Israel/Palestine conflict as well as the Russia/Ukraine conflict. It's a total abdication by the loser of their sovereignty all for a feather in Trump's crown.
Ukraine has been given an ultimatum to accept this deal by Thanksgiving (a US holiday) or lose all American support. Including advanced warning of Russian attacks from US intelligence. We wouldn't tell them the Russians are coming. A total and complete shut down of US support such that Ukraine is completely blinded.
But if we could actually ally with Russia against China that would be a massive strategic win. Russia is:
1. A massive nuclear power
2. On the border of China
3. Willing to take risks for geopolitical gain that the Europeans would never dream of
4. A natural enemy of China since China claims (unofficially) large areas of Siberia including Vladivostok (their only major port on the Pacific).
If Russia were an ally, that would put our alliance to the north, east, and south of China. More importantly it would put the threat of a land based attack on the table which is currently not the case.
Russia is also a failing state with a crumbling economy and a demographic disaster unfolding, that is having issues pushing further than 50kms from its borders in a land war with the poorest European nation. They would only be a liability in a conflict against China.
What is this, a game of risk? Ignoring the multitude of issues with a Russia+US alliance (I don't think current leadership would ever trust each other), China would absolutely not be okay with the US on its doorstep.
Russia and China aren't exactly good friends, but this is a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" situation. The US is not popular with either of them.
It would be amusing if US seriously contemplated allying with Japan against Germany during the WWII.
If you want to ally with Russia, you must destroy the Russian Imperialist regime first, represented by Putin and FSB. Ukraine is helping with that. Then free and democratic Russia will become your ally. But if you don't crush the Russian imperialists, they will crush you.
What has that got to do with anything? Japan is on the other side of the world from Germany. Not a particularly useful ally. And whether or not a country is an ally is entirely dependent on alignment of interests. Democracy doesn't have the slightest thing to do with it.
GPS was built by the US military. Its existence was first revealed in Desert Storm back in 1990 when the US military used it to drive tanks into the desert, then come out where and when they wanted. The Iraqis were quite surprised, since they knew that desert, and knew that they would get lost if they tried to do the same maneuver.
Parts of the GPS signal are encrypted to be only useful for the military. The result is that civilian systems an average 4.9 meters of accuracy, while the military is precise to something like a meter instead. But that extra accuracy doesn't help if the signal is jammed.
It was revealed earlier than 1990. In 1983 it was publicly announced that it would be made available for civilian use. Hard to do that without its existence being revealed.
I remember the capability coming as a surprise in 1990, but you're right that Reagan announced that civilian access would happen back in 1983.
Now I don't know if I was misremembering, or if Iraq was simply unaware of the technology, or whether that announcement was for access at some future date.
I do remember discussing GPS on sci.physics in the mid-90s though. Where I learned that GPS is the only commercial technology that has to take general relativity into account. Clocks on Earth run measurably slower than clocks at the altitude of GPS satellites, and the effect is big enough that GPS has to correct for it.
No, very much not. It was an article about how shocked the Iraqis were that the US tanks were able to disappear into the desert, organize, and then assault where and when they wanted to.
Looking back at the history, the tanks began to go into the Saudi desert in August of 1990. They then launched their massive assault on Feb 24, 1991. And caught the Iraqis completely flatfooted. With the tanks moving faster than the news of the tanks for several hours.
GPS was always intended for both civilian and military purposes, dating back to its inception in the 1970s. In response to the downing of KAL 007 by the Russians in 1983, civilian access to satellite navigation became an explicit guarantee. But that wasn't really an operational turning point, just a clarification of policy.
Before KAL 007, GPS was unaffordable to most users, and not widely developed commercially because there was still uncertainty about whether it would remain available in the long run.
The US Military does use GPS, but ordinary civilians don't have access to high accuracy data. Commercial vendors can license for higher accuracy, but its a hybrid civilian/military system with higher quality data for military use cases.
I think that was previously the case, but not anymore. I can get within a couple meters accuracy on my phone, which is plenty good enough for weapons guidance.
Sometimes it's important to step back and reserve that these green field systems are merely trading blows with something originally designed in the 80s which carries all that baggage to 2026.
I remember reading something about defunding some satellites, so I went looking. All I could find is articles about the US not providing backup satellites.
It was a consideration. This is why M-Code exists - so be spoof resistant. And jamming is just a fact of life, which is why the vast majority of US military GPS guided munitions are actually GPS/INS guided munitions. They are all capable of falling back to inertial navigation, with some degradation in performance.
USG is in this position for a few reasons:
* It is actually technologically difficult to create GPS equivalent INS (or similar system). Everyone is pursuing this, not just USG/DOD. The Chinese are too for sure.
* It is true that the DoD became somewhat over reliant on GPS from a training and doctrine perspective. While they continued to develop and buy systems and munitions with INS backup, you can't operate with near total air/space/cyber dominance for ~2 decades without it somehow effecting your culture
* The war in Ukraine has been a catalyst for all sorts of technological changes, both in the West, but all across the world.
US were the first to develop GPS spoofing/jamming capabilities, so its not like they didn't think of it. I would guess that the need for a navigation system was huge, and it was unfeasible at the time to build a system impervious to electronic warfare.
Fabulously complicated and only producible with exotic emitters, sensors, and high frequency ICs.
Probably as easily jammed or forced into calibration state with a directed low frequency em pulse generator.
High tech garbage. We will not fare any better than Ukraine relying on tech like this.
Fortunately someone recently posted a real technological wonder - the F-14 cpu, old timers were messing with multithreaded compute while I was muddling along learning pong line by line from a hobbyist magazine.
No, it is carrying out a highly effective asymmetric war. Russia has vastly more resources, but proportionately, Ukraine's forces are being far more effective than Russia's.
I was with a friend visiting O'hare approach control outside Chicago. As with our previous visit to the Regional air traffic control, I was there mostly to give my friend a ride. However, on this visit I asked a question when the opportunity arose
"What would you do if GPS went out, permanently?"
The whole room collectively didn't want to think about it. There doesn't appear to be a plan. We've collectively put all our eggs in one basket.
I think air traffic is probably the most resilient group - I’m surprised no one answered!
IFR was designed long before GPS and for the most part, GPS has been shoehorned into the “old” system. VORs around the country are still “primary” for navigations; airways are still primarily defined around VOR radials; and approach plates to large airports have plenty of non-GPS precision approaches. (Some smaller GA-only airfields that recently got IFR approaches might be WAAS/GPS only).
Losing GPS might increase workload for some sectors (en route sectors who won’t be able to clear aircraft direct to waypoints) but not likely TRACON who are vectoring aircraft on pre-defined approach plates.
If you pick a random commercial flight on your favourite flight tracker and check it’s route, 99% of the waypoints on it are defined as VOR intersections, not GPS coordinates. (The remaining 1% are likely en-route waypoints and not in the departure/approach area).
Also, the instrument proficiency requirements for pilots require multiple approach types to be logged every 6 months so they are definitely capable of non-GPS approaches.
The Frank LoBiondo Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2018 had with-in it the provision National Timing Resilience and Security Act of 2018:
* https://rntfnd.org/wp-content/uploads/National-Timing-Resili...
A roadmap was published in 2021:
* https://www.transportation.gov/pnt/national-timing-resilienc...
And also from 2021, NATIONAL R&D PLAN FOR POSITIONING, NAVIGATION, AND TIMING RESILIENCE:
* https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021...
The simplest solution is to simply to resurrect the Loran infrastructure that the US (and others) run until the 2000s. The Koreans have been running eLoran for a while, and the UK and France are teaming up as well:
* https://insidegnss.com/uk-and-france-renew-ties-resilient-pn...
* https://rntfnd.org/2025/11/12/s-korea-leads-meeting-with-u-k...
Chinas has had a completely built out network (including fibre networks for high-precision timing) for over a year:
* https://rntfnd.org/2024/10/03/china-completes-national-elora...
This is not rocket surgery: a working system that can giver you continent-wide coverage can be up and running a few years, with little technical risk (there's already kit available).
Throwing some money at the problem and instructing the DOT/DHS/whomever to issue an RFI/RFP would go a long way to moving the ball forward.
Something like LORAN would be useful for operations near friendly nations and/or relatively uncontested areas.
They don't particularly help with striking Chinese assets. Which is what the DoD funding is primarily about.
> They don't particularly help with striking Chinese assets. Which is what the DoD funding is primarily about.
Why not use China's own Loran (and BeiDou) system against them?
For all we know that is a contingency. DoD is relatively public and transparent, but they don't reveal everything.
If that was a contingency, it would just play into the the whole cyber/information/electronic/space domains aspects of the whole "multi-domain" stuff.
Surely both China and the US have contingencies in place to try to determine if the opposing side is exploiting their PNT systems, and then figure out ways to subvert that in various ways.
GPS has been getting better over time. The newest iteration of the system supports a directional spot beam for military users with +20dB gain for theater-level jamming resistance.
A +20dB gain means that the jammer is going to need roughly 100x its current power output to maintain the same effectiveness. An adversary ramping their transmitter by this much would turn into a blazing hot target in terms of electronic warfare. There are entire classes of weapons designed to lock directly onto signals like this. The AGM-88 is an example.
A part of why GPS is such a weak point is that existing receivers out there are pretty basic. Including receivers in things like JDAMs and other PGKs.
This is even worse in Ukraine, where a lot of "precision munitions" are cobbled together from civilian parts and duct tape, jammers are cheap and plentiful, and anti-radiation missiles are unicorns.
>> precision munitions" are cobbled together from civilian parts and duct tape
Like the M982 Excalibur by Raytheon which is pretty much useless now in Ukraine.
Not as affected as it could have been, as long as it can fall back to IMU and magnetometer data. It travels too fast.
Now, does it have a semi-reliable IMU fallback? GPS jamming/spoofing detection, an IMU that survives the conditions? Classified. Best case, you can partially un-fuck the performance with just a software fix.
> an IMU that survives the conditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre-optic_gyroscope
>>> reports revealed the Excalibur shell strike success dropped from 55% to 6% last summer
6% sounds not effective at all. Especially considering a price tag, which is x30+ of regular shell.
Thats a problem for the Ukrainians, not the Pentagon. As far as jdams (some of) the ones in ukr have "home-on-jam" capabilities so no harm needed.
You fucking wish it was just a problem for the Ukrainians.
If US ever gets into a serious near-peer war, the Pentagon may have to resort to doing the same thing Ukraine does. Mass produce inferior but easy-to-scale weapons to address the growing munition shortages.
The Pentagon understands this. This is why moves are made in that direction.
And we can't trust the Pentago anymore, so the circle is completed (see the recent "Ukraine deal" which is basically just a sell-out toward the USA allying with Russia).
But was that "deal" even produced in the Pentagon? We can't trust the current White House anymore, but this was known since late 2024.
One study said the English language in the plan was likely written by a Russian native.
Nothing says "empire treating everyone else like serfs" like expecting a peace plan between two foreign nations being written in proper English and not the mother tongue of the parties involved.
Do you not see the irony in this? "The two of you should make peace in our language, or it's fake."
Even if the argument is made that the USA is involved in the war and should be a party to the plan (it "isn't", except "it is"), the peace plan should've been written in Ukrainian and Russian, and only then translated to English as appropriate.
Seriously, that this is even being considered as a detractor from peace is highly specious.
Perhaps you should point out that the language of the peace plan wasn't written in Ukrainian, translated into Russian, and then into English. That'd probably be acceptable, right?
That is darkly amusing. My personal bet was either on an intern or ChatGPT.
You only stopped trusting the government in 2024?
Few things in life are binary. I think for many it went from passive scepticism to active distrust.
There are typical politicians, and there is Trump. It's like Disney cartoons vs South Park.
Written by The Kremlin, Jared Kushner and a Florida property developer (in that order).
Can you explain why you think that deal is selling out? It seems reasonable from the point of view of the United States given they don’t want to pour more money into a conflict they don’t really care too much about. Surely there are some lessons learnt from the “war on terror”
Rewarding aggression from Russia won’t save money (or lives) in the long run.
Abandoning Ukraine will only save money if the US also abandons NATO. After this the Baltic states are next.
The Russians made the same argument about Ukraine's aggression at the beginning of the conflict. The entire world has been saying it about the USA's wars as well. This very mechanism of 'punishing ones enemies so they never do it again' has simply justified the atrocities; it has not ended a single damn thing.
If the USA had been punished in the same manner for its atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan, would we have had the rest of the disaster unfold?
And we see the end result of this line of thought in Gaza, where literally millions of human beings lives have been irreversibly damaged for generations, because someone decided to punish their enemy at massive scales. And as we can see in the case of Gaza, this is no guarantee of peace, whatsoever. This line of thought has led to genocide and ethnic cleansing at massive scales.
And, it simply does not work. Period. There are generations of new terrorists who want vengeance in the Gaza/Israel war, just as vehemently as Americans do, for the Ukraine/Russia war. These children will only be converted back to peace-makers if their lives are _improved_ by the peace plan, not made worse, and there is a long, long road ahead in both wars, for all parties, to attain that condition.
At some point, making peace means putting aside any aggression-based arguments and just getting on with the program to bring both sides together, to stop the fighting and start the economic unity required to keep things peaceful.
This peace plan seems like an attempt to do just that, so it should be supported. After all, it does contain triggers that will re-ignite the war machine again - and, it could be argued that should those triggers be activated, the war would be more justifiable to the world community, and those who seek a wider, escalated war against Russia, will get their fulfilment if this plan is betrayed. This peace plan would be the first step towards greater forms of punishment - but it works for both sides. If Putin violates the agreement - Russia comes under attack by the entire world. If Ukraine's leadership violates the agreement, Russia gets cart blanche to continue its dismantling of the Ukrainian state. Therefore, the peace-makers must have the reins in lieu of the warmongers, as of now.
(Disclaimer: I've read the peace plan, have Ukrainian and Russian friends in my circles who are veterans from the conflict, and their opinion is: yes, it is far past the point where the aggressive warrior narcissists need to be ignored and statesmen and diplomats need to work harder to re-establish peace between the two nations. I personally feel that this plan has to proceed, or else the entire world is going to see the conflict expand to our own borders. This means the hyper-actualisation of warrior narcissism needs to stop, and civilisation-building economic tools need to be better applied - by all parties - to ensure the region is rebuilt again. Trust must be restored through economic unity, first and foremost - that is what this plan aims to achieve.)
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars ended with the US famously achieving few to none of its long-term war goals and a huge public and international sentiment against further regime change adventures. If those resisting the US occupation had given up earlier, would the US neocon warmongers have been so thoroughly driven from power? Or would they have been emboldened by the victory and more likely to continue with their promised invasion of Iran?
Russia is a nuclear state, and will in no rational scenario ever "come under attack by the entire world" due to the inevitable consequences. On the other hand, manufacturing casus belli again and invading Ukraine in a few years is an obvious outcome.
The USA is still involved in heinous wars, don't be daft. Gaza wouldn't have happened without its support.
> Ukraine's aggression
What?
And the argument for supporting Ukraine is not to punish anyone. It’s to avoid rewarding (and thus normalizing) aggression and the violation of territorial integrity, a core principle on which the UN is founded.
The main concept in 20th century post-ww2 international relations was the prohibition of aggression to take land. Ending 19th century concepts like “spheres of influence “ that grant “great powers” the right to change borders by force.
>avoid rewarding (and thus normalizing) aggression and the violation of territorial integrity, a core principle on which the UN is founded.
A very tenuous position to maintain, given the extreme violations of territorial integrity enacted by other members of the UN's security council.
Compared to the era before ww1/ww1 it’s utopian.
The world is very complex and things are rarely perfect. We make incremental progress aiming for ideals, but still dealing with the world as it is.
Incremental progress would be a peace negotiation which brings both nations back to the realm of economic exchange, and an end to the senseless mass murder of innocents.
>but my ww1!
Its the 21st Century, we are decades removed from that era.
>> If Putin violates the agreement
It's not "if", it's "when". Russians negotiates in bad faith, always. They violates agreements for centuries. Putin also lied many times.
West will do nothing meaningful to stop them and they know it.
That is why we should not push Ukrainians to accept proposed capitulation "deal" from Kremlin.
>West will do nothing meaningful to stop them and they know it.
Because the West is guilty of far worse war crimes in the past 50 years, and the whole world knows this. To call Russia to the table for these wars, sets the precedent for other nations to do exactly the same for the USA, the UK, and their allies.[0]
Plus, there's that whole "nuclear annihilation" aspect to consider.
It's not capitulation. It is an attempt to attain peace and economic stability for the region in a way which will prevent the conflict from flaring up again in the near future.
Have you actually read the details of the peace plan, or are you going by media reports, exclusively? Be honest with yourself about this if you wish to discuss it further.
[0] I'm all for prosecution of Russian war crimes, if it leads to the exact same procedures being applied to the USA and its allies. The world is sick of war-monger nations getting away with mass murder.
>> It is an attempt to attain peace and economic stability for the region in a way which will prevent the conflict from flaring up again in the near future.
"Peace for our time!" Some people skipped history lessons. Russia is not winning the war. To give them Ukrainian capitulation is to reward for starting a war.
>> Because the West is guilty of far worse war crimes in the past 50 years, and the whole world knows this.
Typical russian whataboutism. But I bite. What crimes west did in past 30 years? Russia started war in Afghanistan, invaded Syria, Georgia, Ukraine.
>> the details of the peace plan
Nothing there about real punishment russia will get when the next invasion/annexion is going to be.
Just a reminder, russia lost to Ichkeria, signed a peace treaty with Chechen. Guess what happened next? Russians always lie.
> Typical russian whataboutism
Not the person you replied to, but this isn't constructive. Correctly pointing out hypocrisy/double standards is very pertinent to the discussion, and shouldn't be dismissed as "whataboutism". Making assumptions about someone who disagrees with you -- in this case, the assumption that he/she is a Kremlin sympathiser -- is irrelevant at best and insulting at worst.
What crimes of the West? The illegal invasion of Iraq and the murder of 5% of its population - which still suffers, day by day. The destruction of Afghanistan. The destruction of Libya. The funding and support of ISIS. The support of Israels' genocide of Gaza. Somalia. Syria. Yemen. Pakistan. Uganda. Niger. The list goes on and on, why don't you educate yourself here: https://airwars.org/
Or perhaps you think the USA is infallible and should be able to murder whoever its ruling class deems worthy.
>Nothing there about real punishment russia will get when the next invasion/annexion is going to be.
Untrue. If Russia violates the agreement, the door is open for the rest of the world to wage wholesale war on it. You clearly have not read the terms.
>> door is open for the rest of the world to wage wholesale war on it.
Open by whom? And btw, it is already open, just no one wants to send troops to Ukraine except North Korea.
>> The destruction of Afghanistan.
Conveniently forgot a decade of russian occupation of Afghanistan.
>>The destruction of Libia
Khalifa Haftar, the warlord who controls east part of the country is backed up by Russia.
In other African countries multiple warlords are backed up by russia.
>> The support of Israels' genocide of Gaza.
Russia arms different forces around Israel as well.
And list goes on.
>>invasion of Iraq and the murder of 5% of its population - which still suffers, day by day
5% is another lie, not backed by data. Just one more point you may be simply a russian-backed agent tasked to share their narratives.
You're deeply concerned about US war crimes, but you support a peace deal which specifically gives amnesty for Russian war crimes?
Whataboutism leads to such odd rhetorical distractions. This isn't a deal about Gaza, Afghanistan, or Iraq, and the only reason to discuss them is to distract from Russia's military aggression.
If the USA can be granted amnesty for its war crimes, why can't other nations? /s
I'd rather see ALL war crimes prosecuted - American, Russian, Israeli, Palestinian, and on and on.
But we all know that is never going to happen for as long as the worlds biggest thug nations refuse to allow the people of the world to see such justice.
This invasion is a violation of a treaty from the 90s!
US is not pouring money into the conflict. They are barely helping. Besides some intel and letting EU countries buy US made weapons for Ukraine.
With this "deal" written by russians USA shows the whole world that their security assurance worth nothing. Also shows that NATO is dead.
This deal is an invite for president Xi to take back Taiwan and whatever territory he wants.
For not caring to much, they try to take a lot of influence in a conflict that's not theirs
I suppose they have responsibilities as members of NATO. Europe has been completely incapable of stopping the conflict.
Is that something trump is saying or is that an actual fact? It's hard to tell the difference these days ... And from my stupid European mind this is not at all how things happened.
Also the conflict still didn't stop, I don't see how America is somehow more capable of doing something when they didn't do anything?
Nowhere in my comment did I say that the conflict has stopped. But Europe is the most interested party in this conflict and they haven’t come up with any reasonable proposition to end it. It’s good that someone with power is proposing something workable.
> It’s good that someone with power is proposing something workable.
But not reasonable.
I'd say it's more unwilling. Until the will is there, we'll never know if they're incapable.
Europe's forces could probably end it in a day, I would suspect. The problem is everyone is unsure of how unstable Putin is and how he would react to several dozen bombers and cruise missiles flattening all the unfortunate Russian soldiers on the wrong side of the border.
It’s selling out the Ukranians, they didn’t get a say in the deal and Putin gets to keep his gains and at home the threat of him being overthrown is lessened. In return Ukraine gets to give up territory and reduce their readiness for the next round of war after giving Putin the chance to build up and regroup.
It's betraying the Bucharest assurances they made to protect Ukraine in exchange for giving up nuclear arms. So fuck that.
We have already done that, along with all the other countries who signed it. The problem is signing up for bullshit symbolic treaties that we have absolutely no intent of ever meeting the obligations. Nobody was ever actually serious that they would defend Ukraine against Russian aggression.
Nice history retconning there
Did we send our army in to defend Ukraine? I don't think "here's a bunch of old weapons we don't need anymore. Thoughts and prayers!" counts.
The "deal" is a laundry list of Putin's wants. Russia gets everything it wants and Ukraine loses everything it needs.
- Ukraine gives up everything they've lost thus far.
- Ukraine must surrender additional territory.
- Ukraine has to cull its military strength.
- It sets up Ukraine to fail to be able to defend itself when the next war begins and does nothing to prevent Russia from restarting the war.
- Russia sanctions end, Russia is invited back to the international stage without reprocussuons or restitution
- It rather grossly calls on America to invest significant money and resources in Russia's tech industry as restitution.
I've heard analysts say that Trump wants this so he can say he ended both the Israel/Palestine conflict as well as the Russia/Ukraine conflict. It's a total abdication by the loser of their sovereignty all for a feather in Trump's crown.
Ukraine has been given an ultimatum to accept this deal by Thanksgiving (a US holiday) or lose all American support. Including advanced warning of Russian attacks from US intelligence. We wouldn't tell them the Russians are coming. A total and complete shut down of US support such that Ukraine is completely blinded.
But if we could actually ally with Russia against China that would be a massive strategic win. Russia is:
1. A massive nuclear power
2. On the border of China
3. Willing to take risks for geopolitical gain that the Europeans would never dream of
4. A natural enemy of China since China claims (unofficially) large areas of Siberia including Vladivostok (their only major port on the Pacific).
If Russia were an ally, that would put our alliance to the north, east, and south of China. More importantly it would put the threat of a land based attack on the table which is currently not the case.
Russia is also a failing state with a crumbling economy and a demographic disaster unfolding, that is having issues pushing further than 50kms from its borders in a land war with the poorest European nation. They would only be a liability in a conflict against China.
Opening another front is never a liability, even if your ally is losing on that front it consumes resources of your enemy.
What is this, a game of risk? Ignoring the multitude of issues with a Russia+US alliance (I don't think current leadership would ever trust each other), China would absolutely not be okay with the US on its doorstep.
Russia and China aren't exactly good friends, but this is a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" situation. The US is not popular with either of them.
You don't have to have trust to be in an alliance. Only an idiot trusts their allies (kind of like in Risk). Do you think FDR trusted Stalin?
> China would absolutely not be okay with the US on its doorstep
Yes, that's precisely the point. You think we should only do things that China approves of?
It would be amusing if US seriously contemplated allying with Japan against Germany during the WWII.
If you want to ally with Russia, you must destroy the Russian Imperialist regime first, represented by Putin and FSB. Ukraine is helping with that. Then free and democratic Russia will become your ally. But if you don't crush the Russian imperialists, they will crush you.
What has that got to do with anything? Japan is on the other side of the world from Germany. Not a particularly useful ally. And whether or not a country is an ally is entirely dependent on alignment of interests. Democracy doesn't have the slightest thing to do with it.
I wonder if this changes the old adage, now that the missile knows where it is at all times. [0]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZe5J8SVCYQ
http://archive.today/QW9WL
I was under the impression that thr US Military doesn't use GPS; that it was a civilian thing and that they had something more precise and secure.
GPS was built by the US military. Its existence was first revealed in Desert Storm back in 1990 when the US military used it to drive tanks into the desert, then come out where and when they wanted. The Iraqis were quite surprised, since they knew that desert, and knew that they would get lost if they tried to do the same maneuver.
Parts of the GPS signal are encrypted to be only useful for the military. The result is that civilian systems an average 4.9 meters of accuracy, while the military is precise to something like a meter instead. But that extra accuracy doesn't help if the signal is jammed.
It was revealed earlier than 1990. In 1983 it was publicly announced that it would be made available for civilian use. Hard to do that without its existence being revealed.
Huh.
I remember the capability coming as a surprise in 1990, but you're right that Reagan announced that civilian access would happen back in 1983.
Now I don't know if I was misremembering, or if Iraq was simply unaware of the technology, or whether that announcement was for access at some future date.
I do remember discussing GPS on sci.physics in the mid-90s though. Where I learned that GPS is the only commercial technology that has to take general relativity into account. Clocks on Earth run measurably slower than clocks at the altitude of GPS satellites, and the effect is big enough that GPS has to correct for it.
I wonder if you mixed it up with the F-117. It was technically public before the war, but got a lot of attention during it.
No, very much not. It was an article about how shocked the Iraqis were that the US tanks were able to disappear into the desert, organize, and then assault where and when they wanted to.
Looking back at the history, the tanks began to go into the Saudi desert in August of 1990. They then launched their massive assault on Feb 24, 1991. And caught the Iraqis completely flatfooted. With the tanks moving faster than the news of the tanks for several hours.
GPS was always intended for both civilian and military purposes, dating back to its inception in the 1970s. In response to the downing of KAL 007 by the Russians in 1983, civilian access to satellite navigation became an explicit guarantee. But that wasn't really an operational turning point, just a clarification of policy.
Before KAL 007, GPS was unaffordable to most users, and not widely developed commercially because there was still uncertainty about whether it would remain available in the long run.
The US Military does use GPS, but ordinary civilians don't have access to high accuracy data. Commercial vendors can license for higher accuracy, but its a hybrid civilian/military system with higher quality data for military use cases.
I think that was previously the case, but not anymore. I can get within a couple meters accuracy on my phone, which is plenty good enough for weapons guidance.
Not since May of 2000.
It was developed by and for the military and is still managed by the military. Those are not normal qualities of civilian only systems.
They use a different coding scheme on the same physical signal. It is resistant to spoofing but far from immune to jamming.
How does GPS stand up to the more recent European and Chinese systems?
Same type of system, same advantages, same vulnerabilities. Slightly different coverage densities.
GPS isn't poorly designed - it's well designed within its design constraints, which those systems share.
Sometimes it's important to step back and reserve that these green field systems are merely trading blows with something originally designed in the 80s which carries all that baggage to 2026.
I remember reading something about defunding some satellites, so I went looking. All I could find is articles about the US not providing backup satellites.
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/27/nx-s1-5127737/losing-gps-woul...
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/business/money-report/losing...
Its about countering adversarial GPS spoofing, not a lack of satellites.
Why was that not a consideration from the start? Surely it is expected that any system with military applications will face jamming and spoofing?
It was a consideration. This is why M-Code exists - so be spoof resistant. And jamming is just a fact of life, which is why the vast majority of US military GPS guided munitions are actually GPS/INS guided munitions. They are all capable of falling back to inertial navigation, with some degradation in performance.
USG is in this position for a few reasons:
* It is actually technologically difficult to create GPS equivalent INS (or similar system). Everyone is pursuing this, not just USG/DOD. The Chinese are too for sure.
* It is true that the DoD became somewhat over reliant on GPS from a training and doctrine perspective. While they continued to develop and buy systems and munitions with INS backup, you can't operate with near total air/space/cyber dominance for ~2 decades without it somehow effecting your culture
* The war in Ukraine has been a catalyst for all sorts of technological changes, both in the West, but all across the world.
US were the first to develop GPS spoofing/jamming capabilities, so its not like they didn't think of it. I would guess that the need for a navigation system was huge, and it was unfeasible at the time to build a system impervious to electronic warfare.
It sounds like it's more that an existing problem is becoming much more frequent.
That should also have been foreseeable.
It was foreseen. There is a huge amount of literature on hardening of GPS from the begining of the technology. Here's so random examples:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.2161-4296....
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/html/tr/ADA057265/
https://www.ion.org/publications/abstract.cfm?articleID=1201...
https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/609916
So what was done? Has GPS been hardened, for example?
I literally provided you with sources that describe Anti-Jam GPS designs.
The US military always believe in the idea that the enemy is stupid or poor and cannot do anything against them.
Got any citations that support making such a blanket statement?
Paywalled
https://www.wsj.com/tech/the-pentagon-cant-trust-gps-anymore...
From another thread:
no paywall: https://www.wsj.com/tech/the-pentagon-cant-trust-gps-anymore...
Fabulously complicated and only producible with exotic emitters, sensors, and high frequency ICs. Probably as easily jammed or forced into calibration state with a directed low frequency em pulse generator. High tech garbage. We will not fare any better than Ukraine relying on tech like this.
Fortunately someone recently posted a real technological wonder - the F-14 cpu, old timers were messing with multithreaded compute while I was muddling along learning pong line by line from a hobbyist magazine.
Probably right. But,
> We will not fare any better than Ukraine relying on tech like this.
Ukraine is faring amazing well, aren’t they?
Russia controls a fraction of the territory, has suffered a million casualties, and lost many many armored vehicles and combat aircraft.
So, it's wining by losing?
> So, it's wining by losing?*
Russia wanted to wipe Ukraine off the map, literally. By simply existing Ukraine is winning.
That's not winning, that's just not losing yet. What a ridiculous thing to claim.
Ok, moving the goal posts works then.
A bit like Putin's war goals.
No, it is carrying out a highly effective asymmetric war. Russia has vastly more resources, but proportionately, Ukraine's forces are being far more effective than Russia's.
Worked reasonably well for the North Koreans and North Vietnamese.
It's a fairly impressive result for the country that was expected to collapse in a week or two.