Russia successfully put into orbit the last three satellites needed for navigation coverage of its entire territory on Wednesday. Russia’s military-run glonass is a satellite navigation system to rival the U.S.’s global positioning system.

The latest round of satellite launchings follows the launching of three in October and brings to 18 the number of satellites now in orbit. glonass—the Global Navigation Satellite System—is expected to have global coverage by the end of 2009, with 24 satellites operational.

Though glonass has been around since the mid-1970s, the project fell into disrepair after the 1991 Soviet collapse. Recently, however, as part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s drive to return Russia to world power status, money has been thrown at the project to make it fully operational. In 2005, Putin instructed the Russian Federal Space Agency and the Defense Ministry to accelerate work on the project so it would become fully operational across Russia by the end of this year, and operational globally by 2010, a year earlier than anticipated. With the latest launching, it appears the project is on target.

Today’s militaries are highly reliant on navigational system technologies. To this point, the U.S.’s gps has largely had a monopoly on the technology. Obviously, this means, as Stratfor has pointed out, “Anyone who picks a military fight with the United States risks losing access to satellite positioning. This makes it impossible for other countries’ militaries to develop and use gps-based satellite guidance technology without playing nice with Washington” (March 16).

That is changing, however. Europe, China and Russia are all working overtime to develop their own systems. As they do, the United States will lose the technological advantage it has had, and other nations will become better positioned for future warfare.