Iran Disables GPS, Joins China’s Beidou — The End of U.S. Satellite Dominance? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQb_hQalexY
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?
Iran’s bold strategic pivot — 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.
Why GPS was always a tool of U.S. soft power. How the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis pushed China to develop Beidou What makes Beidou uniquely powerful in battlefield environments.
Youtube auto-transcript - under edit the Chinese space program has been making impressive strides.. US constellation is smaller than Beidou [Music]
now in the midst of the Israeli Iran war last week a decision was made by the Iranian leadership . it disabled the GPS across its
territory and formally adopted China's Beidou satellite navigation system .
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 BeuDOU
How Iran and the Global South are quietly building independence from Western tech