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What’s new: More information about how the wars and potential wars in space are shaping up.
Why it’s important: The U.S. is far more dependent on space than any other nation. For a while space was a safe place to put critical assets. Now, not so much.
What else to know:
- Musk and Starlink are an interesting case. If Russia and/or China attack Starlink assets are they really attacking the U.S.? Will the U.S. go to war over a business interruption? Lots of layers and things to think about here.
- The Insider is an independent investigative digital publication is founded by Russian journalist Roman Dobrokhotov. It is operated primarily by Russian journalists in exile, and is headquartered in Riga, Latvia.
Shooting Starlink: The “no limits” partnership between Russia and China is taking aim at Elon Musk
A joint investigation by The Insider, Der Spiegel, and Le Monde.
Secret documents from a series of clandestine Russian-Chinese military forums reveal a joint plan to defeat Elon Musk’s Starlink and a weapons development partnership far deeper than either country will admit. From air- and missile-defense systems to AI-enhanced drone capabilities, cooperation between Moscow and Beijing is allowing Russian forces to keep pace with Ukrainian innovations while China gains the opportunity to test its wares under combat conditions. Although the threat of increased Western sanctions continues to place constraints on their “no limits” partnership, Russia and China are moving forward with several joint projects — and former U.S. military officers are concerned about Washington’s will to stop them.
By the fall of 2023, Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet network, had become a primary means of communication on the Ukrainian battlefield. Medics used its terminals to coordinate evacuations, artillery crews to correct their fire, and drone operators to fly in real time. “Starlink is now actually the blood of our entire communications infrastructure,” Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s then-minister of digital transformation and now its defense minister, said that September. As of November, SpaceX had delivered more than 40,000 terminals to Ukraine, and the system had grown so central to the country’s war effort that U.S. officials described it as irreplaceable.
