Iran Disables GPS, Joins China’s Beidou — The End of U.S. Satellite Dominance? [19:23 | JUN 28 2025 | GVS Deep Dive]
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32183144
Generated Summary below:
Video Description:
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.Watch till the end to understand:
Why GPS was always a tool of U.S. soft powerHow the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis pushed China to develop Beidou
What makes Beidou uniquely powerful in battlefield environments
How Iran and the Global South are quietly building independence from Western tech
Will more countries ditch GPS and align with China’s Beidou system?
#GVSDeepDive #Beidou #IranGPS #ChinaTech #Geopolitics #SatelliteWars
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Najma tweets @MinhasNajma
Najma Minhas is Managing Editor, Global Village Space. She has worked with National Economic Research Associates (NERA) in New York, Lehman Brothers in London and Standard Chartered Bank in Pakistan. Before launching GVS, she worked as a consultant with World Bank, and USAID. Najma studied Economics at London School of Economics and International Relations at Columbia University, NewYork. She tweets at @MinhasNajma.
Generated Summary:
Main Topic: Iran's decision to disable GPS across its territory and adopt China's Beidou (Bato) satellite navigation system, and the implications of this shift for U.S. dominance in space and global geopolitics.
Key Points:
- Iran's Shift: Iran has disabled GPS and adopted China's Beidou, a geopolitical statement driven by concerns over cyber warfare, electronic jamming, and dependence on Western-dominated systems.
- Reasons for the Shift:
- Rising cyber warfare threats and tensions with the US and Israel.
- Geostrategic alignment with China, which offers technical superiority in some areas.
- A scandal involving alleged leaks of Iranian officials' locations via WhatsApp and Instagram.
- GPS Origins and Dominance: GPS, built and controlled by the US military, became the backbone of global navigation. The US unlocked high precision for civilian access in 2000, fueling the growth of smartphones, Uber, and precision agriculture.
- China's Beidou as a Competitor: China developed Beidou after realizing its military vulnerability during the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. Beidou now rivals GPS, with more satellites and ground stations, offering better positioning accuracy in some regions and unique features like short message communication.
- Beidou's Capabilities: Beidou offers high accuracy, anti-jamming protections, and short message communication. It powers over 1.5 billion users daily and is integrated into China's Belt and Road Initiative.
- Implications for Iran: Beidou provides Iran with a secure, independent navigation network, enhancing the precision of its military operations and strengthening its economic resilience under sanctions.
- Future Trends: China aims to make Beidou the world's go-to system by 2035. The US is upgrading its GPS system, but these upgrades offer only moderate improvements.
Highlights:
- Iran's move is not just a tech upgrade but a geopolitical realignment, signaling a shift away from Western digital hegemony.
- Beidou is becoming a first-choice alternative for countries seeking political independence.
- The US Space Force acknowledges that GPS is lagging in updates.
- Beidou's short message communication feature is a unique strategic capability not offered by GPS.
- The video poses the question of whether more countries will follow Iran's lead and adopt Beidou.
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How TF can you shut down GPS for just a country? That's not how it works. And the US doesn't get paid or sees your position or anything when you use their GPS. It's an entirely passive system.
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How TF can you shut down GPS for just a country? That's not how it works. And the US doesn't get paid or sees your position or anything when you use their GPS. It's an entirely passive system.
Iran could decide to purge itself of all GPS-reliant devices and use Beidou devices instead. They could go the extra mile and intentionally jam the GPS frequencies in its territory (or even broadcast their own signal to confuse receivers in enemy bombs), as long as those frequencies are not also used by Beidou.
But you're right in that GPS is a global system and the US is raining down RF everywhere in the world, whether the people there like it or not.
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Iran could decide to purge itself of all GPS-reliant devices and use Beidou devices instead. They could go the extra mile and intentionally jam the GPS frequencies in its territory (or even broadcast their own signal to confuse receivers in enemy bombs), as long as those frequencies are not also used by Beidou.
But you're right in that GPS is a global system and the US is raining down RF everywhere in the world, whether the people there like it or not.
They stop using GPS recievers, therefore nothing for GPS to connect to.
Its a slow transition, but it is one of magnitude. The US could shut down the satilites over Iran, like Starlink did it with Russia/Ukraine.
They are preparing for that, and mostly for the US to loose the power to potentially do it. It matters in case of all out war.
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They stop using GPS recievers, therefore nothing for GPS to connect to.
Its a slow transition, but it is one of magnitude. The US could shut down the satilites over Iran, like Starlink did it with Russia/Ukraine.
They are preparing for that, and mostly for the US to loose the power to potentially do it. It matters in case of all out war.
It's stupid to not just use all the available systems. Don't just support Beidou. Use Beidou, Galileo (European), GLONASS (Russia) and GPS. Makes lock on faster, increases precision and helps if one doesn't work for whatever reason.
The US cannot just shutdown Iran's usage. That would impact all other countries as well. GPS consists of only about 30 satellites for the whole world. Starlink satellites are much much lower and can thus be more easily associated with one country.
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It's stupid to not just use all the available systems. Don't just support Beidou. Use Beidou, Galileo (European), GLONASS (Russia) and GPS. Makes lock on faster, increases precision and helps if one doesn't work for whatever reason.
The US cannot just shutdown Iran's usage. That would impact all other countries as well. GPS consists of only about 30 satellites for the whole world. Starlink satellites are much much lower and can thus be more easily associated with one country.
Echoing this, civilian GNSS is a passive system, and I'm all for redundancy, you should be using all four constellations for the highest accuracy and fastest lock.
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Echoing this, civilian GNSS is a passive system, and I'm all for redundancy, you should be using all four constellations for the highest accuracy and fastest lock.
Yes, you should use it for the fastest lock, but if your interest is to keep the US out of influence, ofc they would do it.
Either that, or they do it to please China hoping for an ally. Second option might be their played hand, even if it doesnt work.
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How TF can you shut down GPS for just a country? That's not how it works. And the US doesn't get paid or sees your position or anything when you use their GPS. It's an entirely passive system.
I'm guessing they banned it and switched to China's system to spy on their citizens.
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I'm guessing they banned it and switched to China's system to spy on their citizens.
China's system can't be used for spying. It's as passive as GPS. These things are harmless. No amount of control can be enacted through them.
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China's system can't be used for spying. It's as passive as GPS. These things are harmless. No amount of control can be enacted through them.
Is it? I haven't looked too much into it, I just assumed a newer system would have tracking built-in.
So now I'm even more confused about why Iran would care which system it uses, if both truly are passive.
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Is it? I haven't looked too much into it, I just assumed a newer system would have tracking built-in.
So now I'm even more confused about why Iran would care which system it uses, if both truly are passive.
GPS and similar systems are just big atomic clocks flying around the earth, shouting their time down to earth. A GPS (or other) device just needs to know the current time and the position of the satellites to calculate its own position.
The most control the US ever exercised over GPS was to encrypt the more precise parts of the satellite's timestamps so that only military devices could get really precise positions. They stopped doing that when other systems went online. That was for the whole world, including its own citizens.
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Yes, you should use it for the fastest lock, but if your interest is to keep the US out of influence, ofc they would do it.
Either that, or they do it to please China hoping for an ally. Second option might be their played hand, even if it doesnt work.
but if your interest is to keep the US out of influence, ofc they would do it.
this video just makes 0 sense. they didn't "disable" GPS and they most probably didn't just start using beidou today
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GPS and similar systems are just big atomic clocks flying around the earth, shouting their time down to earth. A GPS (or other) device just needs to know the current time and the position of the satellites to calculate its own position.
The most control the US ever exercised over GPS was to encrypt the more precise parts of the satellite's timestamps so that only military devices could get really precise positions. They stopped doing that when other systems went online. That was for the whole world, including its own citizens.
Cool, I looked into it and yeah, it seems like Beidou is incredibly similar to GPS, so it really shouldn't matter. GPS seems to be a little more accurate for the average person, but otherwise they're largely the same.
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They stop using GPS recievers, therefore nothing for GPS to connect to.
Its a slow transition, but it is one of magnitude. The US could shut down the satilites over Iran, like Starlink did it with Russia/Ukraine.
They are preparing for that, and mostly for the US to loose the power to potentially do it. It matters in case of all out war.
They can't shut down the satellites over Iran. That's not how GPS works. They aren't geostationary with tight beams like comm satellites. Every GPS satellite goes around the earth twice a day and has a beam that covers the entire earth plus something like 10 degrees on the sides out into space (circular, not actually side to side). While the US can turn off broadcasting while directly over very large swaths at a time (like, say, China and Russia), it isn't actually turned off on the ground because there will still be satellites over Europe or northern Africa that will be on and sending data at a higher angle to that large swath. It will be lower powered in that region because the signal power is lower at the edges, but it isn't off. Also, Iran is in the same region as US allies and US military bases: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc; so the US would be unlikely to want to lower GPS power in that region.
Starlink is very different in how it sends signals to the earth, which is why it can shut off services to areas.
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Iran could decide to purge itself of all GPS-reliant devices and use Beidou devices instead. They could go the extra mile and intentionally jam the GPS frequencies in its territory (or even broadcast their own signal to confuse receivers in enemy bombs), as long as those frequencies are not also used by Beidou.
But you're right in that GPS is a global system and the US is raining down RF everywhere in the world, whether the people there like it or not.
They can't jam GPS in the entire country. That kind of jamming is very localized to strategic sites. Country-wide jamming would be wildly expensive. They could (and probably already do) jam it at military bases and nuclear facilities, though.
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How TF can you shut down GPS for just a country? That's not how it works. And the US doesn't get paid or sees your position or anything when you use their GPS. It's an entirely passive system.
The writing in this story is not accurate. Iran isn't turning it off for the country. They are talking about switching government services to use receivers that use Beidou as primary source of timing and maybe selectively turn off using GPS on those devices.
