Given Elon’s open sympathy towards fascists and Trump’s doting on Putin, I can imagine exactly why Russia thought it was a good idea.

This is what the US’s defense production act is for. If a company makes a critical product, the US has openly stated that it will compel a company to prioritize making that product in times of need. They can’t refuse. This is also why the US wants all of its key systems to be US made- they cannot be held hostage by a foreign entity.

There’s obviously a few areas where this isn’t really true, like a foreign company setting up a US company to sell their product, but by and large the US is immune to the risks you describe. China similarly makes most of their own systems and is mostly immune. A large scale WW3 between the US and China cannot be stopped by a company refusing to participate.

> simply because the commercial stuff is more usable and gets updated faster.

And this isn't a new pattern by any means. Decades ago the UK military had a plan to replace their old analog centric radio gear with a system that integrated voice, data, gps blue force tracking etc. They called it BOWMAN.

The initial versions were so bad everyone started calling it Better Off With Map And Nokia.

The defense establishment moves at a glacial pace and consistently under delivers vs the equivalent commodity commercial products.

Isn't virtually all military hardware and software single-sourced? Ultimately they trust the supplier and have good contracts. I imagine the US military is migrating to Starshield over time where they have a better SLA.

> The vendor becomes a strategic chokepoint, and there's no precedent for how that plays out in a peer conflict

This describes Boeing and lots of other firms

The US has also done lots of protectionism for a bunch of monopolistic businesses out of (alleged) national security interests.

For example all the Israeli tech in CENTCOM.

Starlink recently implemented new rules for satellites that travel more than 100mph. Service is deactivated unless they have a valid government ID and an aircraft's tail number attached to the account. While both can be faked, you could arguably correlated a provided tail number with ADS-B data because anyone with a Starlink is likely also broadcasting ADS-B. But it also provides a bit of 1:1 correlation on satellites and there is a finite number of tail numbers out there.

They also jacked up the subscription price which caused thousands of actual pilots to cancel their service. So expect a flood of used Starlink Minis to enter the market soon.

SpaceX already does geo-lock them to an extend. But the terminals are exported to so many countries that any meaningful controls are impossible.

The theory is the US let some Russians use it as a trap to get them dependent on it and then pulled the rug which gave Ukraine a big advantage to clear some areas and generally disrupted Russian operations.

The DoD has always been deeply involved in running Starlink there

Cappy army on YouTube had an interesting analysis on the starlink usage in russia.

https://youtu.be/Fpt8dYAwK7c?si=x5pp9vfKdwXM947c

Not only that. It seems to have been more Russian starlink terminals than Ukrainian ones.

How does radio transmission with fast moving targets work (including LTE on phone), doesnt the doppler effect shift the frequencies of all radio waves?

Nowadays Starlink terminals to operate in Ukraine they have to be approved so right now Russians cannot waste them anymore on drones as it's much harder getting one working (in the past they have been).

Especially in light of that early war elon confession about disabling terminals mid Ukraine op.

Another not great data point is https://militarnyi.com/en/news/ukraine-starlink-data-traffic...

"Starlink satellite traffic in Ukraine fell by about 75% after SpaceX shut down its terminals in the occupied territories of the country."

By now it came to light russians for example had starlinks on every assaulting tank in addition to long range drones.

.gov allowed Russian military to become reliant on Starlink, then cut it off.

That was a deliberate tactic; Government is not leaving the fate of nations in the hands of Elon Musk alone.

CSIS is republishing work from PLA affiliated writers from PLA affiliated think tanks, published an a PLA affiliated journal because it does in fact capture aspects of internal PLA thinking. This article is from 2023, it's not written in the context of the current administrations policies and rhteroic. While we can always be certain that there are aspects of external facing PR/propaganda, we also should consider "how does China view the militarization of Starlink and Space".

And to that end, we can clearly see that the PLA sees Space Dominance as being strategically destabilizing. They see threats to their ability to disperse and hide their nuclear launch systems.

In fact, from a 2026 lens, the best way to read this paper would be "the PLA has mapped out its vulnerabilities, and all of its risk control and escalation options (basically its suggestions in the conclusions) are basically off the table. Therefore, it's very obvious that the PLA will attempt to compensate through simultaneously achieving its own space based capability similar to Starlink, develop additional ways to hold US strategic assets (read nuclear strike platforms) at risk, and find asymmetric means of deterrence".

EDIT: Just made a connection in my head - there's been a lot of news about Chinese nuclear arsenal increases in recent years, with a uptick starting around 2023, and the DoD estimating a rough tripling from 2025-2035. I suspect these developments might be connected.

EDIT2: I think to summarize what I think would be important take away from reading this paper is that while the most immediate examples of militarized Starlink use are all very tactical level (thinking about drones in Ukraine), this piece clearly signals that the PLA also believes that Starlink militarization poses treats at the strategic (read nuclear) level. And therefore, if we think purely in terms of tactical/operational capabilities, we may be caught off guard by certain reactions by the PLA/China.

> The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization dedicated to advancing practical ideas to address the world’s greatest challenges.

Sorry, may I get more information on why this is considered Chinese army propaganda?

My understanding is that CSIS (https://www.csis.org/about) is an US based organisation that provides analysis on topics which include Chinese organisations/military.

It makes a change from the US Military propaganda I suppose.

Interpret: China is a CSIS project aimed at facilitating a more nuanced understanding of global strategic issues through a library of translated materials matched with expert commentary.

Americans are so propagandized and paranoid that they see a DC blob foreign policy think tank translating Chinese PLA source documents and start wondering if there's a nefarious plot afoot. "Understanding the enemy?! That sounds like an axis of evil conspiracy!"

It really is that simple. Straight up CCP propaganda translated from a Chinese journal, written by Chinese professors worried about Chinese national security.

Last I attended a CSIS event, it was filled with US intelligentsia (including the famed Zbigniew Brzezinsky, Polish spellings be damned).

But does that mean they are wrong?

I haven't read it fully but it doesn't seem to be promoting any sort of falsehoods. As an American I consider any reliance on Starlink and the thoroughly compromised Elon Musk to be a weakness rather than a strength.

Americans propaganda has completely brainwashed you

To be honest, I think US demographic trends are a lot worse than whatever is going on with China.

Get yourself a plane ticket from your """free""" America to visit """communist""" China one day, you might be surprised by what you see

> All in all, I would rather live in a somewhat free America than in communist China.

The last 15 years has significantly changed peoples' opinions on that matter. https://data.worldhappiness.report/chart

Let's see how the next 15 goes.

Consumer tech "exceeded" military tech when the first consumer-grade FPV drones started destroying tanks and bombing trenches in 2022.

Exactly as cyberpunk books predicted, the technology is so advanced that all you need to create a weapon is sold in a toy store.

> I think this is the first time in history where consumer tech exceeds military tech

Never mind airplanes, telephones, steel, cars, trucks, photography, steam engines, gasoline engines, light bulbs, electric power generation, ...

Indeed for once data volume >>> other concerns

This is a completely unfounded conspiracy theory, but I think it’s a fun one. I think Elon Musk is running these companies the same way that he is a top ranked Diablo player. He just plays one on TV. The decision makers in the military industrial complex pushed black programs into a group of private company so they could scale and cut red tape while shedding contractors with really serious performance problems. So now a faction of “the insiders“ control space launches, social media, and have a backup AI company. There are less successful programs like Tesla for getting cattle like me to drive an electric car that can be remotely driven into a median or disabled if someone in Bethesda decides that they don’t like you. Also there is a not so successful attempt to revolutionize tunnel logistics for defense. So what I’m saying is that this is military tech, they just pretend these are private companies run by a Tony Stark showman. I can’t support this with evidence, but it makes for a good story.

> any one of them taking out a couple sats and causing debris would cause a chain reaction that would effectively turn space into a dump

You may not realize how big space is relative to the size of a few sats.

...there was civilization long before satellites.

The relative impact of Kessler syndrome is honestly overblown: we're simply not that dependent on satellites for day to day activities. It would be an economic disaster, but those aren't civilization ending.

same for "save the whales" PlanetLabs