What are the chances of “Building a Multinational Global Navigation Satellite System”? It may not have the answer, but RAND analysts, in a new paper, note some possible benefits, such as “increased performance in accuracy.” For decades, the US Air Force’s Global Position System has been the preeminent navigation and timing system, used by military and civilian customers around the world. Free to customers. In advancing its own GPS-type system—Galileo—Europe is about to upset the apple cart. RAND says that the coexistence of the two poses “technical, geopolitical, regulatory, national security, and economic issues.”
The emphasis on speed in the Pentagon’s newly unveiled slate of acquisition reforms may come with increased near-term cost increases, analysts say. But according to U.S. defense officials, the new weapons-buying construct provides the military with enough flexibility to prevent runaway budget overruns in major programs.
