Since World War II, the United States has yielded many of its policy decisions to the desires of the United States military. These policy decisions reach from nylon and aluminum restrictions for the war efforts of World War II through the tough military build-up policies of the 1980s amidst fiscal constraints. In the aftermath of the conflict in Vietnam, President Ronald Reagan was determined to regain America's influence in the world by rebuilding the military and strengthening the economy. In 1989, the Berlin Wall came crashing down as the prelude to the fall of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain of communism. Without the apparent threat of war with the Soviet Union, the United States began to focus more on maintaining an economic and political leadership role around the world. No longer did the United States military hold a firm grip on the rudder of national policy. Instead, a balance between the amount of military power required to remain relevant in the world and economic and political influence was sought. One of the tools provided by the military to the civilian community is the Global Positioning System (GPS). This system, originally designed for the United States military, was released for public use in a degraded form after the tragic downing of a Korean airliner by Soviet fighter aircraft after the airliner unknowingly strayed into Soviet airspace in 1983. The GPS system's full accuracy capability was not released to the public out of fear by the Department of Defense (DOD) that potential adversaries might use the system for inertial guidance of smart munitions against the U.S. Currently, there is a controversy over the possibility of expanded access to the highly accurate GPS signals heretofore available only to authorized DOD users. The decision to grant full access to the precision signal will be made by the President of the United States after weighing all of the factors which impact on the full release of this system for unrestricted civilian us
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