The U.S. State Department under the leadership of Secretary of State John Kerry wants to allow Russia to build facilities in the United States that would help them improve their version of the American Global Positioning System (GPS), the satellite network that guides American missiles to their targets with pinpoint precision.
The U.S. intelligence community and armed services committee members on Capitol Hill believe that assisting with the Russian system, known as Glonass, for Global Navigation Satellite System, would leave the United States susceptible to spying and strengthen Russia’s long-range weapons capabilities.
Now before you think Yellowhammer transformed itself into Infowars over the weekend, check out what even the New York Times had to say about this on Saturday:
In recent months, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon have been quietly waging a campaign to stop the State Department from allowing Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, [from building] about half a dozen of these structures, known as monitor stations, on United States soil, several American officials said.
They fear that these structures could help Russia spy on the United States and improve the precision of Russian weaponry, the officials said. These monitor stations, the Russians contend, would significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of Moscow’s version of the Global Positioning System, the American satellite network that steers guided missiles to their targets and thirsty smartphone users to the nearest Starbucks.
American technology in global positioning has to date far exceeded that of our rivals. However, China, Russia and other European nations have harbored ambitions of challenging U.S. supremacy in this area.
And now the U.S. State Department would apparently like to help them.
More from The New York Times:
[T]he C.I.A. and other American spy agencies, as well as the Pentagon, suspect that the monitor stations would give the Russians a foothold on American territory that would sharpen the accuracy of Moscow’s satellite-steered weapons. The stations, they believe, could also give the Russians an opening to snoop on the United States within its borders.
Alabama Congressman Mike D. Rogers, R-Saks, is demanding answers from the Obama Administration.
“I would like to understand why the United States would be interested in enabling a GPS competitor, like Russian Glonass, when the world’s reliance on GPS is a clear advantage to the United States on multiple levels,” Rogers said.
Rogers wrote a letter to the Pentagon last week asking for them to provide an assessment of how allowing the monitor stations to be built on U.S. soil could impact national security.
The State Department says a final decision on the matter is still pending.
The monitor stations have been a major priority for Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent years. The United States has no such stations in Russia.
Follow Cliff on Twitter @Cliff_Sims
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