Iran abandons GPS: What its shift to China’s BeiDou means

Iran has quietly left GPS behind — and that should worry the West. There was a time when Iran’s missile systems, mobile networks, and merchant fleets all danced to signals broadcast from American skies. That time is ending.

In a development that has flown largely under the radar in Western capitals, Iran has decisively pivoted away from the US-controlled Global Positioning System (GPS) and hitched its strategic wagon to China’s BeiDou satellite navigation network. The implications are bigger than most realise — not just for Iran’s military capabilities, but for the balance of technological power in the Middle East and beyond.

This is not a sudden break, but a slow uncoupling. For years, Iranian planners lived with the uncomfortable reality that GPS, the backbone of global positioning and timing, was ultimately controlled by the Pentagon. Though nominally free and open, GPS access can be selectively degraded or denied. And with Iran perpetually on the wrong side of American sanctions and surveillance, that risk was never theoretical.

The dangers became especially apparent in recent years. US forces have jammed or spoofed GPS signals in the Gulf. Israel routinely manipulates satellite signals to confuse both civilian and military systems. Tehran’s response wasn’t loud, but it was deliberate: stop depending on American infrastructure, and start building an alternative.

Enter BeiDou, China’s answer to GPS. Developed over two decades, BeiDou now offers full global coverage and, crucially, encrypted military signals with accuracy down to the decimeter. Iran began formal cooperation with the BeiDou programme around 2015, and by 2021, had secured access to those military-grade signals — an elite status previously reserved for Beijing’s closest partners.

This isn’t just about better maps or more reliable drone navigation. It’s about severing a critical point of control the US once held over adversarial states. During April 2024’s missile barrage against Israel, Iranian weapons exhibited unprecedented accuracy. Some struck within 10 m of their intended targets — far tighter than earlier generations of Iranian hardware. Was this simply improved engineering? Likely not. More plausible is that Iranian drones and missiles were no longer relying on jammed or spoofed GPS signals. They had BeiDou to guide them.

The ripple effects go far beyond the battlefield. Civilian uses of BeiDou are now multiplying inside Iran. Agricultural drones spray crops using BeiDou-guided routes. Iranian port authorities use the system for maritime mapping. Even ride-hailing apps are integrating BeiDou-ready handsets into their platforms. As always with emerging tech, military adoption paves the road for mass-market civilian use.

But perhaps the most significant consequence of Iran’s pivot is what it says about the world order. The global monopoly of GPS is cracking — not just technologically, but politically. China’s 'Space Silk Road' strategy, of which BeiDou is a key pillar, aims to build a rival ecosystem of infrastructure, protocols, and dependencies.

Iran has become a frontline member of that club, and it is not alone. Russia’s GLONASS is being integrated with BeiDou; North Korea is reportedly dabbling in compatible systems; Pakistan is already onboard. A bloc is forming — not one built on ideology, but on digital sovereignty and shared adversaries.

This poses a new kind of challenge for the US and its allies. The strategic advantage once conferred by controlling global positioning has been diluted. In any future conflict involving Iran, turning off the GPS tap will no longer leave Iranian systems blind. That leverage is gone.

To be clear, BeiDou is not a silver bullet. Iran is still dependent on Chinese hardware, software updates, and satellite maintenance. Beijing retains the power to throttle or revoke access — though it is unlikely to do so, given the deepening strategic ties between the two nations. Still, this is a different kind of dependency than Iran had on GPS: one aligned with its current geopolitical orientation rather than in tension with it.

Meanwhile, the West is playing catch-up. Defence researchers are scrambling to understand how to spoof BeiDou signals, how to jam them, how to counter weapons guided by a navigation system they can’t disrupt. That’s a sobering prospect for militaries long accustomed to PNT (positioning, navigation and timing) superiority.

Iran’s navigation switch isn’t just a technological upgrade — it’s a geopolitical signal. In choosing BeiDou, Tehran is affirming its place in a rising counter-order, one in which Western dominance of the digital commons is no longer a given. This is the future of war and peace alike: not just boots on the ground or ships at sea, but the silent logic of satellites, guiding both missiles and economies from 20,000 km above, as Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi demonstrated in a video a few weeks ago.

For now, those signals no longer come from California. They come from China — and Iran is listening.