Starlink has already been used in Russian's war against Ukraine. Of course the satellites can take photos as a bonus.

It's a massive spy network, if weaponized.

What kind of pictures can starlink would take? When I look at pictures of starlink satellites, I don't see a camera. Maybe they have one, but if we can't see it, it is most likely useless for observation, except for taking pretty pictures of the Earth, or maybe other passing satellites.

Spy satellites are more like space telescopes, but pointed at the Earth. As an example, Hubble is designed after a spy satellite, the "camera" is pretty massive and obvious.

Starlink can probably be weaponized for a variety of thing, like for communication, obviously, but I don't think earth optical observation is one of them.

It's also been used for regime change attempts - part of the internet that's harder to shutdown, though apparently jamming GPS currently appears to be quite effective.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-in...