Recently, pundits have been musing that one of the reasons Eurocrats have been so bitter towards the US, in particular this current administration, is because of the imptence that Europe suffers militarily. When your supposed ally and NATO partner is attacked and goes to war, and only ONE country has the military hardware to really participate in any meaningful way, one would think that increases in military budgets to help carry the load would be appropriate. Au contraire. The first option is ratchet up the rhetoric, and point out that the United States in simplistic and acts unilaterally. Much whining will follow. Option #2 appears to be to spend vast amounts of money to improve your satellite technology and your space based intelligence capacities. That sounds reasonable, and I was shocked to find out that the Europeans might actually be doing something productive. But then I came across this gem:
Galileo will be dedicated to civilian rather than military use so there will never be a risk the system could be unavailable or abused because of US military and security needs…
We have to think big. Britain led the design and building of the path-breaking Envisat which will provide the most extensive environmental monitoring of our planet ever mounted. The US thinks environmental concerns are a socialist conspiracy against middle America, as George Bush has declared. The results from Envisat will supply the environmental evidence that the US refuses to gather. It is the EU, now going it alone with the Kyoto Treaty, that is paying to acquire this information – and showing a readiness to act on the results.
In other words, we are not going to use this for our own safety and security, nor are we going to use it to aid the U.S., which has essentially guaranteed our safety and security for almost 60 years. Instead, we are going to use this technology to scream about Kyoto.
Wankers.