9 ms·
Starlink militarization and its impact on global strategic stability (2023)
- freakynit 7mo agoI mean most of us knew from day 1 this would get militarized as soon as possibly can... the same goes for spacehip (large payloads delivery to battlefields) as well and neuralink (during interrogations).
- mistrial9 7mo agosame for "save the whales" PlanetLabs
- cpursley 7mo agoPlease elaborate, this sounds like a fun weekend rabbit-hole.
- mistrial9 7mo agothis is very difficult to address with intellectual honesty. It seems obvious to me that people of conscience and standing have built plenty of the most cutting edge tech of this age. Yet those people are structurally embedded within business and government. Far-reaching technology is one thing, but satellite networks are especially impactful in many ways for both real time intelligence gathering and also building a record of analytic data over time. So, PlanetLabs.. without a doubt, completely sincere in Doves reading save-the-whales data over the entire Earth. And also, connected "at the hip" to the US Federal Government. Does the US Federal Government work diligently to save-the-whales? You be the judge. PlanetLabs is business, with investors. That is the horse that brought the endeavor to its current state. Larry Ellison seems to run a very stable business, in the same locales, and that seems to be just fine with investors. Is there any way that PlanetLabs would not be subject to the same investor pressures and direction, lawsuits and governance letters, that Oracle is subject to? seems likely that lots of the same actors are close at hand, from the beginning. SO there is tragedy and comedy, stock price and hiring practices, technical capacity and brilliance. The mission is the message ? feedback here seems likely to escalate, so let's set a tone of informed debate, and recall that after the typing, almost nothing will actually change in practice.. just an educated guess.
- nradov 7mo agoThe US Federal government has done a lot to save the whales. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-mammal-protection/marine-mammal-protection-act https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-mammal-protec...
- wood_spirit 7mo agoKrill baby krill? The current administration is openly extractive without the fig leaves of old. I don’t think we can look forward to nature - whether it’s national parks or marine parks or just being a non polluting neighbor - getting any priority or protection from now onwards.
- conorcleary 7mo agoCanada will continue to casually choose the pro-nature option when presented.
- conorcleary 7mo agoYeah, they are using this tech 'round the backside to track subs.
- dtkav 7mo agoI was early at Planet (and fresh out of college) and the transition internally towards govt money was very painful for the bright eyed save-the-world hackers internally. The initial technical architecture was aligned with broad good (low res, global, daily, openly available), but the shift towards selling high res satellite capabilities directly to governments has been tough to see. Their role of providing a public ledger is still a net good thing IMO, and i doubt Planet is adding much increased capability to the US war fighter (they have way better stuff). Harder to say for their deals with other governments that have fewer native space capabilities.
- Distilitron 7mo ago[dead]
- blondie9x 7mo ago[flagged]
- direwolf20 7mo agoThey have the most economic output, the highest quality technology, and the sanest voices of reason. It's too bad they're a dictatorship. If they can fix that I might have to move there.
- kilpikaarna 7mo agoI think China would say the last one is the reason for the first three, and point to democracy as a root cause for the problems facing the West.
- simonh 7mo agoThey are supporting and encouraging Russia’s war against Ukraine. They also provide diplomatic cover and economic support for the Iranian regime. They promote nationalist radicalism and harassment of nonconformists on foreign campuses. They ruthlessly suppress dissent, or even just non Han ethic identity and implement racist eugenic policies in their regions. The comment you replied to referred to Taiwan as existing alongside China as a country. That’s a crime in mainland China.
- righthand 7mo agoThe Usa does similar things across the world. Here I swapped for the Usa. > They are supporting and encouraging Israel’s war against Iran and Palestine. They also provide diplomatic cover and economic support for the Israeli regime. They promote nationalist radicalism and harassment of nonconformists on foreign campuses (Columbia protests). They ruthlessly suppress dissent (you must support the troops, using chemical weapons on protestors), or even just non White ethic identity and implement racist policies in their regions (rounding up immigrants without due process).
- simonh 7mo ago
- modeless 7mo agoWhy is Chinese army propaganda on this site? It's not news that the PLA will oppose technology that gives the US military an advantage.
- parker-3461 7mo ago> 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 https://www.csis.org/about) is an US based organisation that provides analysis on topics which include Chinese organisations/military.
- modeless 7mo agoDid you read the first sentence? > In this piece, two researchers from PLA-affiliated National University of Defense Technology argue that
- cwillu 7mo agoDid you stop reading at the first sentence??
- jas- 7mo agoYes. It is the equivalent of reading a technical review of a product by the product owner
- cwillu 7mo agoWhen you were a kid, did you stop listening when your parents said “Santa”, or did you keep listening in order to glean useful information from their propoganda, even knowing that Santa isn't real?
- stinkbeetle 7mo ago
- anovikov 7mo agoWhile there is a massive US advantage in space launch, it should be used to the maximum. It's not going to last forever (while perhaps, sufficiently long that China fizzles out demographically before it's gone).
- GorbachevyChase 7mo agoTo be honest, I think US demographic trends are a lot worse than whatever is going on with China.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- PeterHolzwarth 7mo agoOh my goodness, this is deeply untrue. China is facing a massive population implosion. A lot of their global strategy can be understood through that lens: they are racing to accumulate power, standing, and wealth before the implosion starts to kick in.
- noosphr 7mo agoEveryone is seeing a population implosion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_world#/media/File%3AWorld_population_pyramid_2026.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_world#/med... we are already past peak child.
- cryptonector 7mo agoSome are doing worse than others, and China is doing close to the worst.
- noosphr 7mo agoChina is doing much better than the West. The only thing keeping populations from imploding here is the constant migration from the third world.
- siliconc0w 7mo agoIt's not great that they found starlink terminals on Russian drones (they've since tried to lock them down more). These should be export controlled and geo-locked as they are arguably much more powerful than any missile.
- nradov 7mo agoSpaceX already does geo-lock them to an extend. But the terminals are exported to so many countries that any meaningful controls are impossible.
- phpnode 7mo agoThe terminal knows where it is at all times.
- hparadiz 7mo agoI think what's actually funnier is that the satellite shooting the laser has to know where the terminal is with pin point accuracy too. So it's pretty easy to cut off targeting to a vast chunk of the planet.
- ch4s3 7mo agoYes but the problem is that the battle lines are fluid and the drones are obviously aiming for the Ukrainian side.
- wmf 7mo ago
- syntaxing 7mo agoI noticed this the other day with the Anthropic upholding its redline. I think this is the first time in history where consumer tech exceeds military tech. Historically, it was always military tech trickles down to consumer.
- GorbachevyChase 7mo agoThis 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.
- Sebguer 7mo agohahaha, the conspiracy i always joke about is when the first time a starlink satellite deorbiting is going to kill someone 'accidentally'.
- throwaway5752 7mo agoConspiracy theories aren't very productive. But the one thing that continues to bother me is how there is no great explanation for why TSLA is still worth much. It's a shrinking car company that is failing to execute at FSD and says it's going to make humanoid robots instead of cars. There is no good reason TSLA should be valued any more than 10% of its current valuation, and even that would be rich. There is a fine argument it should be worth 3-4% of what it currently is. It is almost like there's a connection between PayPal, Elon Musks fortunes, and crypto. I still wonder who Satoshi really was. I wonder how Microstrategy remains solvent.
- redgridtactical 7mo agoThe 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.
- wmf 7mo agoIsn'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.
- fny 7mo agoThe 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 7mo agoThat'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.
- wmf 7mo agoLEO is pretty expensive. Smaller countries might be better off with cheaper Astranis GEO satellites.
- santiago-pl 7mo agoSi vis pacem, para bellum. Just because I have a knife doesn't mean it affects the stability of my neighborhood. Even if I use my knife to kill a killer, that doesn't necessarily affect the stability of my neighborhood. It could even improve it. All in all, I would rather live in a somewhat free America than in communist China.
- Herring 7mo ago> 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 https://data.worldhappiness.report/chart Let's see how the next 15 goes.
- cushychicken 7mo agoThe last 15 years has significantly changed peoples' opinions on that matter. I’m gonna need to see some immigration statistics on influx of foreigners into the PRC to believe that claim.
- monkaiju 7mo agoMight have more to do with language than anything else TBH
- cryptonector 7mo agoOk, but what is China's immigration policy like? They could be importing young people from nearby India, yet they're not. Why?
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- monkaiju 7mo agoI mean, theres still a language barrier there no? I dont know much about their immigration policies though.
- dev1ycan 7mo agoWe are already in some sense past the threshold of sats required for a potential civlizational collapse that would be caused by the loss of access to space. There are way too many sattelites, starlink militarizing means it's a viable target now for enemy nations, 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, let's not even mention that military = more money = more sats, making it even riskier. Or the fact that at any moment those sats could also die from a carrington+ level event.
- XorNot 7mo ago...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.
- WalterBright 7mo ago> 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.
- dev1ycan 7mo agohttps://conference.sdo.esoc.esa.int/proceedings/sdc9/paper/305/SDC9-paper305.pdf https://conference.sdo.esoc.esa.int/proceedings/sdc9/paper/3... You may want to read an actual study about it. And this doesn't even consider the possibility that militarization of starlink satellites may cause them to get taken out, which will trigger the KS the same way.
- WalterBright 7mo agoInteresting paper, thanks! I guess we'll find out.
- cryptonector 7mo ago
- omegadynamics 7mo ago"StarShield"
- aaron695 7mo ago[dead]
- exabrial 7mo agoI watch CappyArmy on YouTube. Was shocked recently to learn that Russia had widely deployed StarLink in Ukraine to get orders to the front lines. Recently this was cut off suddenly, with an immediate counter attack by Ukraine... along with Ukraine trolling the shit out of Russia frontline operatives; offering fake "recover your Starlink connection" websites and texts, scamming them out of their account credentials. Great episode to go watch. I can't imagine how Russia thought this was a good idea?
- tw04 7mo ago[flagged]
- stinkbeetle 7mo agoNo that Russia collusion conspiracy theory rubbish has been debunked.
- jmpman 7mo ago“Just left Ukraine. What I saw proved to me we can’t give up on the Ukrainian people. Everyone wants this war to end, but any agreement has to protect Ukraine’s security and can’t be a giveaway to Putin. Let me tell you about my trip and why it’s important we stand with Ukraine.” - Mark Kelly Musk replied directly to that post: “You are a traitor.” Kelly fired back the next day: “Traitor? Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do.” Musk later doubled down in media appearances, stating that putting “the interests of another country above America” makes someone a traitor. I don't see Musk making those statement about US helping the interest of other countries. It seems like stopping Russia from being an aggressor is in the direct interest of the US. Why would Musk think otherwise?
- ExoticPearTree 7mo ago> It seems like stopping Russia from being an aggressor is in the direct interest of the US. Why would Musk think otherwise? He is entitled to his own opinions. From a business perspective Russia is a bigger market than Ukraine for Starlink. And since have no political color, it makes sense for him to not be pro-Ukraine that much. And lastly, what is in the interest of the state is not neccesarily in the interest of people and vice-versa.
- infinitewars 7mo agoMusk started SpaceX with Michael D. Griffin, the guy who invented large constellations of military satellites to win a nuclear war. And then he funded Starlink. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin
- generuso 7mo agoStarlink project began after Musk and Greg Wyler parted their ways. Wyler approached SpaceX in 2014 with a proposal to build OneWeb (then called WorldVu), and initially they worked on the project together. But then they started to accuse each other of doing various underhanded things, and split. After that, Musk decided that he could do a similar and even better system without Wyler, and that's how Starlink was born in 2015.
- infinitewars 7mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_s...
- cryptonector 7mo agoThis comes across as whining.
- phaser 7mo agoStarlink was never about giving people untethered access to the internet.
- someonewhocar3s 7mo ago[dead]