| ▲ | redgridtactical 8 hours ago |
| The dual-use problem with Starlink is really just the most visible version of something happening across the military. Phones with civilian GPS chips are increasingly used alongside dedicated mil-spec hardware, simply because the commercial stuff is more usable and gets updated faster. The real strategic question isn't whether Starlink can be weaponized - of course it can - it's what happens when military operations become dependent on commercial infrastructure that a single company controls. The vendor becomes a strategic chokepoint, and there's no precedent for how that plays out in a peer conflict. |
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| ▲ | parsimo2010 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| 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. |
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| ▲ | jasonwatkinspdx 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > 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. |
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| ▲ | redgridtactical 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Had no idea about that, went down a rabbit hole researching it. It's a pattern that keeps repeating: by the time mil-spec hardware ships, the commercial equivalent is two generations ahead. | | |
| ▲ | throwup238 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | There’s a structural reason for that. Mil-spec hardware requires years of data on the failure modes of components to properly design. NASA has the same problem and in the last decade or two they’ve been relaxing that requirement for less critical missions because technology sped up so much. For the military that won’t change until there’s an existential threat. |
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| ▲ | wmf 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| 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. |
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| ▲ | 0_____0 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Military connectors (e.g. MIL-STD-38999) are deeply multi sourced, like you can buy compatible connector sets from Souriau, Amphenol, ITT Cannon, some others. So it depends. | |
| ▲ | fny 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The other consideration is that the kill switch is ultimately controlled by the US. The US government can easily commandeer Starlink or jail Musk, but other countries use starlink at the pleasure of both Musk and the US government. | | |
| ▲ | redgridtactical 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's the part that makes allied nations nervous. If you're running military comms through Starlink and the US decides to play hardball in some trade dispute, your entire C2 network just became a bargaining chip. Ukraine showed how quickly access decisions become political. I think we'll see European and Asian allies start investing in their own LEO constellations specifically because of this - nobody wants their military dependent on another country's CEO. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | European and Asian allies would have to start by investing in low-cost launch capabilities. So far they're making approximately zero progress in that area. The reality is that all US allies except for maybe France no longer have the capability to project power much outside their own territory without active US support. It's not only satellites. They're also missing just about everything else such as logistics, specialized aircraft, air defense, amphibious capabilities, intelligence, etc. With largely stagnant economies there's no way they can sustain the funding necessary to close those gaps unless they join together in closer alliances with each other. | | |
| ▲ | realityking 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Most European countries (except France and the UK) are not interested in projecting power outside of a fairly narrow geographic area (mostly the European continent and adjacent seas). These “military starlinks” will be much smaller systems than actual Starlink. The German one plans for 100 satellites. Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-07/airbus-te... | | | |
| ▲ | redgridtactical 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You're right that the launch cost gap is the real barrier. Europe's been talking about sovereign launch capability for years but Ariane 6 still can't compete on cost with SpaceX. I think the more likely path is that smaller nations lease capacity on someone else's constellation rather than building their own. The question is whether that actually solves the dependency problem or just moves it from one provider to another. |
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| ▲ | parsimo2010 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Most countries would not need to make their C2 infrastructure fully dependent on Starlink, because most countries are not big enough and cannot project enough power globally to make this an actual requirement, and the few countries who can project power globally can afford multiple communications layers. But your core idea is true. This is explicitly one reason the US marketed the F-35 so hard to their allies. In addition to giving their allies a good capability, it made their air force dependent on continuing US support, so politicians wishing to go against US positions have to be willing to sacrifice their military power to do so. This gives the US a strong lever in negotiating. | |
| ▲ | wmf 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | LEO is pretty expensive. Smaller countries might be better off with cheaper Astranis GEO satellites. | | |
| ▲ | jasonwatkinspdx 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | There's other interesting middle ground options, like O3b's equatorial MEO ring, that has coverage similar to GEO as far as latitudes go, but better latency. |
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| ▲ | nradov 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's not a matter of migration. The US military used Starshield from the start and never relied on Starlink for anything important. | |
| ▲ | redgridtactical 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Fair point on single-sourcing, but the difference is that Lockheed doesn't have a consumer business that creates geopolitical incidents on Twitter. Traditional defense contractors are purpose-built for that relationship. With Starlink, you've got a commercial network serving 80+ countries that also happens to be critical military infrastructure. Starshield helps on the SLA side, but the underlying constellation is still shared. What does "good contracts" even look like when the asset is literally in orbit and serving both markets simultaneously? | | |
| ▲ | nradov 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Starshield has a separate dedicated constellation and can also use the civilian Starlink constellation for certain purposes. This is not a problem. The US government has direct operational control for everything they need. No one of any importance cares about "incidents" on X. | | |
| ▲ | redgridtactical 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's valid and definitely changes the risk profile if the military constellation is operationally separate. Though the civilian network is still a force multiplier in many cases, which puts it in the targeting calculus for adversaries regardless of whether troops depend on it directly. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Irrelevant. Only China will have the capability to target satellites to any significant extent, and if it comes to a real war with them then we're probably all dead anyway. |
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| ▲ | dmix 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > 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. |
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| ▲ | righthand 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| For example all the Israeli tech in CENTCOM. |
