Iran has just shut off GPS across its territory — and switched to China’s Beidou satellite system. Why now? What does it mean for U.S. dominance in space-based navigation and warfare?
In this episode of GVS Deep Dive, Najma Minhas unpacks Iran’s bold strategic pivot — and why it may mark the beginning of the end for America’s global GPS monopoly. From WhatsApp tracking scandals and drone warfare to China’s high-precision Beidou system and Belt & Road integration, this decision carries major military and geopolitical consequences.
in this era of satellites and mega constellations the Chinese space program has been making impressive strides they've never played by the rules they don't see us as a competitor they see us as an enemy are the American systems not visible because the US constellation is smaller than Beos [Music] welcome to GBS Deep Dive i'm Nam Minhas and today we're breaking down a quiet but powerful shift that could reshape the future of global navigation systems and how it impacts wars going forward now in the midst of the Israeli Iran war last week a decision was made by the Iranian leadership which was missed by many people iran made a strategic move in which it disabled the GPS across its territory and formally adopted China's Beu satellite navigation system now it wasn't a tech upgrade it was a clear geopolitical statement and it's a decision that's expected to serve it well in the future as well especially given that it's believed that the ceasefire has only been agreed by Israel to let it consolidate itself before starting the next offense for decades the GPS which was built and controlled by the United States military has been the backbone of satellite navigation technology for global positioning navigation and timing but for countries like Iran long at odds with Washington relying on United States infrastructure comes with real risks from the threat of service blackouts to surveillance and cyber vulnerabilities so why now several reasons likely pushed Iran towards this decisive shift first with the rising threats of cyber warfare and electronic jamming especially during a period of heightened tensions with Israel and the United States Iran could no longer afford to rely on a system its adversaries can disrupt second China's BEu offers not only technical superiority in some domains but also geostrategic alignment beijing and Thran are deepening ties across trade energy and defense third this is part of a larger Iranian strategy to break dependence on Western dominated systems whether it's Swift the internet or satellite networks but there is a key reason this move came now a scandal which brewed inside Iran's war rooms iranian state media claimed that WhatsApp and Instagram had leaked the realtime locations of senior Iranian officials to foreign powers particularly Israel and the United States these apps they alleged broadcasted location data whenever phones were connected to the internet a digital breadcrumb trail for hostile drones and missiles while Meta the parent company of WhatsApp and Instagram owned by Mark Zuckerberg has denied these allegations insisting it doesn't collect or share precise location data and uses end-to-end encryption cyber security analysts say that the risk isn't in the message content it's in the meta data in the timestamps communication frequency and even approximate GPS data can be exploited especially if spyware is involved in response Iran urged it citizens across the country 90 million people to delete WhatsApp and Instagram altogether calling them tools of espionage now this isn't just about paranoia some of Iran's most high-profile military assassinations including those that happened during this current conflict are now being traced back to potential leaks from digital communications country went on to lock down its internet for the same reason reports show that during June 2025 war escalation the government blocked internet access by over 97% including social and messaging apps despite WhatsApp's statement the company has recently got another shock as a couple of days ago the United States House of Representatives also banned WhatsApp on all its members devices the notice to all house staff said that the office of cyber security has deemed WhatsApp a high risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data absence of stored data encryption and potential security risks involved with its use this goes far beyond digital surveillance what you're about to hear is how GPS became one of the most powerful tools in US hands and why China decided to quietly challenge that supremacy in space bo isn't just a replacement it's a serious competitor to the GPS in the current environment the geopolitics of which is encouraging a full divergence in technology systems between China Russia potentially some of the BRICS nations or the global south and the west with a full constellation of global satellites is delivering high accurate positioning robust anti-jamming protections and even a unique short message communication feature now that last one is particularly important especially in areas where traditional networks fail think of war zones remote areas or natural disasters on the technological front Iran gets access to precise navigation for civilian industries from trucking and farming to telecom strategically this is about sovereignty iran is signaling that it will no longer be vulnerable to American control over its critical infrastructure and on a global scale Beu is gaining momentum iran's move shows how China's system is not just a backup it's becoming a first choice alternative for countries who are seeking political independence please stay with me to the end to understand how GPS became our indispensable daily tool most of us would now be redundant without it are map reading skills even taught in schools any longer why the Chinese realize that the power that controls space controls the battlefield how China's BEu stands relative to to the United States GPS and finally how China will silently end up helping Iran in any future war to truly understand this shift we need to go back to how GPS became such a dominant force it all started in the Cold War when the Soviets launched the Sputnik in 1957 united States scientists discovered they could track its radio signal from the ground using the Doppler effect and that led to the United States Navy building transit the first satellite navigation system for submarines in the 1960s by 1973 the United States Department of Defense launched Navstar GPS a unified military control system designed for global coverage it used 24 satellites in orbit control from ground stations and offer 24x7 positioning navigation and timing in 1983 after the Korean Airflight07 was shot down near Soviet airspace President Ronald Reagan announced a GPS would be available to civilians but with a signal degragation so that it would not be as precise for civilians as it was for the military now this was done for security reasons obviously it wasn't until 1995 that GPS reached full global functionality but in 2000 President Clinton ended signal degradation he unlocked high precision for civilian access this was a turning point that fueled everything from smartphones and Uber to precision agriculture and warfare now that's when everyday life started to change for all of us by the late 2000s people everywhere from Europe to Asia were relying on United States satellites no more printing Map Quest directions i don't know how many of you remember doing that or wrestling with folded maps in the car for those of you who remember driving and the fights in the car you missed that turn go back why didn't you tell me I had to turn over there gps has probably saved a lot of relationships by the late 2000s with smartphones in our pockets GPS became personal gps didn't just reshape warfare it reshaped how we live our lives how we move how we communicate however it quietly also gave the United States an invisible hand in our daily lives the lives of billions of people around the world but behind that convenience was a deeper dependency whether you were delivering rice in Pakistan or guiding a ship in the South China Sea you were using a system that the United States could turn off at any time it drove trillions of dollars of activity worldwide one 2024 study has estimated that one day outage of the GPS system would cost the United States alone $1.6 billion per day today the GPS is run by the United States Space Force and it's in the third generation GPS 3 so it features stronger encryption and better jamming resistance but remember it's still under the United States military control in a conflict access can be cut while GPS was once the undisputed king of satnav and a key instrument of American soft power it now has a growing list of global navigation satellite system competitors from China's BU to the European Union's Galileo Russia's GLONAS and even India's regional system the NAV IC however without question the most significant rivalry comes from China china learned that lesson early after watching United States forces dominate the Gulf War in 1991 with GPSG guided strikes chinese military leaders concluded that they needed their own system but the 1996 Taiwan straight crisis is widely regarded as that key triggering event that pushed China to begin developing its own satellite navigation system what would eventually become in 1996 in response to the pro-independence moves and the first democratic elections in Taiwan China conducted a series of missile tests near Taiwanese ports the US reacted by deploying two aircraft carrier strike groups to the Taiwan Straits it was a clear signal to Beijing back down during that standoff China realized that its military was blind compared to US forces which used GPS to coordinate naval and air assets with precision it also realized that it relied entirely on the GPS which the United States could cut off or degrade at any moment in 1997 formal approval was granted to begin the Bato program bedo 1 was launched in 2000 with just three satellites and some small regional coverage bedo 2 followed in 2012 expanding its services across the Asia-Pacific but it was Bato 3 which was completed in 2020 that gave China full global satellite navigation capability now this system now has over 30 satellites and rivals GPS in many areas of the world overall Bato now has around 45 to 50 operational satellites as compared to the United States GPS which has 31 now what further enhances Beu's power the Chinese have many more ground stations than GPS this is what helps to amplify and strengthen the signal even more be civilian service offers a much better positioning accuracy of around 1 meter in many parts of Asia and China as well as parts of Africa while GPS typically in those areas provides accuracy within 3 to 5 meters while globally BEu is said to have around 2.5 to 5 m which is similar to that of the GPS although some reports suggest that it outdoes GPS accuracy in over 165 countries in simple terms have you tried sending someone your current location what pops up and tells you how close in meters it gets to where you are now if you see mine on the screen when I was doing this I made all the areas black for you know security reasons but you can see that the GPS in my area where I was at that point gets as close as 5 m accuracy to where I was sitting at that time now most phones support all global navigation systems out there but generally what phones will do is they'll tap into any of the satellites that is closest to it and is giving it the best signal but this isn't just about satellite counts it's about who controls the infrastructure of war trade and everyday life and what happens when that control quietly shifts for military applications it is said that BEu can achieve centimeter level accuracy and it offers encrypted military channels as well as that that short uh message function that lets users send text or location data without cell coverage now that is critical for emergencies as well as battlefield scenarios that is a unique strategic capability something that GPS still does not offer beu now powers over 1.5 billion users worldwide daily from smartphones and smart cities in China and Pakistan to logistic hubs in Africa it's being used over the 140 countries especially those under the Barri program bato is quietly becoming the backbone of the new tech ecosystem it's a central pillar in China's belt and road initiative linking infrastructure with digital sovereignty over 30 countries in Africa are using it for precision agriculture which has helped those countries to boost their yields by over 15% and in war Beu gives China and its allies like Iran a GPS independent strike and defense capability within seconds precision so when Iran shuts off GPS and turns on Beu it's not just a software update it's a geopolitical realignment if BEu keeps rising we may be watching the decline of the America's uncontested digital empire gps is lagging in updates as per the United States own space force department the US is currently replacing its 1990s era GPS satellites with newer GPS3 satellites however those GPS3 are still not trailblazing technology they were originally intended to launch in 2014 now these satellites offer only a moderate improvement to the last GPS version they just give a little bit of an upgraded accuracy going from 3 m down to 1 m this is less than what Galileo can already provide gps will eventually is expected to be followed by what is called GPS 3F now that's expected to provide additional capabilities such as that first completely digital navigation payload however this GPS 3F is not expected to take place until the mid 2030s by 2035 China's aiming to make Beu the world's go-to system now that's not without its own issues unlike for example the European strict GDPR laws for data provision China doesn't have any such thing now coming back to Iran China's BEu satellite navigation system offers Iran a strategic upgrade at a time when the western controlled infrastructure is both a security threat and a geopolitical liability for the country by shifting to Beu Iran gains access to a secure independent navigation network that cannot be degraded or cut off by the United States unlike the GPS system now this has immediate military implications as you can imagine Iranian drones missiles and air defense systems can now operate with enhanced precision using BEu's encrypted coordinates the systems advanced anti-jamming capabilities and even that unique short message function which allows limited text communications without cellular network means that Iran on the battlefield gets much better resilience especially in the event of any cyber attacks or electronic warfare being used in a future conflict with Israel or during a regional escalation in the Gulf these features could provide decisive allowing Iranian forces to coordinate navigate and strike targets without relying on vulnerable United States linked systems beyond the battlefield Bo also strengthens Iran's civilian logistics and economic survival under the sanctions iranian oil tankers cargo fleets and overland trade convoys they can now navigate using BEu instead of GPS which helps Thran to reduce its exposure to western tracking and surveillance especially through the so-called dark fleet tactics that rely on disabling transponders and avoiding detection china's integration of BEu into its belt and road infrastructure also gives Iran a foothold in the Eurasian trade corridors it deepens its connectivity through Central Asia and the Caspian region symbolically Iran's adoption of BEu signals a technological realignment a quiet but firm pivot away from Western digital hedgemony and towards a China alternative order where sovereignty is maintained not only through missiles and treaties but also through satellite signals and code share with me your thoughts do you think more countries will follow Iran's lead and ditch the GPS for Beu don't forget to like subscribe and hit the bell to stay informed thank you for giving me your time today and have a great
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