Although Tesla and SpaceX chief executive officer Elon Musk donated Starlink platforms to Ukraine following its invasion by Russia, Musk has drawn condemnation after a misguided proposal for a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. He was also accused of blocking Starlink in areas of occupied Ukraine.
On Oct. 14, CNN reported that “SpaceX has warned the Pentagon that it may stop funding the service in Ukraine unless the US military kicks in tens of millions of dollars per month.”
This caused some panic among Ukrainian officials. On Monday last week, following a public backlash, Musk said Starlink would not be turned off regardless of US military funding.
This back-and-forth farce regarding the operation of Starlink for Ukraine raises serious concerns.
Musk — neither trained nor elected — is in an immensely powerful and influential position where he could do serious damage to the Ukrainian war effort if his subversive rhetoric goes unchecked.
For instance, Musk wrote on Twitter that “Crimea [is] formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake).”
Moscow lauded Musk for the tweet. It not only advanced pro-Russia propaganda, but also ignored and oversimplified the intricate history between Crimea, Ukraine and Russia.
It is a historical fact that Crimea was never part of the Russian Federation prior to its illegal annexation in 2014.
The 1994 Budapest Memorandum — signed by then-US president Bill Clinton, then-British prime minister John Major, then-Russian president Boris Yeltsin and then-Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma — promised to uphold the territorial integrity of Ukraine, which includes Crimea.
Starlink is undoubtedly crucial for the Ukrainians in this conflict. Starlink is a satellite Internet constellation with thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit.
Satellite Internet service with low latency and high bandwidth is essential in a modern conflict where existing communication infrastructure can be targeted. The destruction of satellites is much more costly and difficult. Only a small number of weapons systems are designed to target satellites.
The defense of Taiwan would also require satellite Internet service as a contingency, but with an unpredictable narcissist with a clear conflict of interest — judging from Musk’s business investments in China — in charge of Starlink, Taiwan must look to other services or develop its own.
Minister of Digital Development Audrey Tang (唐鳳) announced efforts to secure satellite Internet backup over the next few years. The selection process should account for the qualifications of the satellite Internet companies and also the people running them.
Taiwan should maintain a level of control over these satellites to prevent the disabling of Internet services from the company’s end. This necessitates technological transfers to Taiwan in the operation of these satellites.
Taiwan should also consider diversifying its satellite Internet services to lessen the effectiveness of cyberattacks. Viasat, Ukraine’s primary satellite Internet service prior to the war, was targeted by Russia in an attack just one hour prior to its invasion on Feb. 24.
Taiwan’s decision to invest in satellite Internet provides a great opportunity to expand the nation’s space industry, to improve military command and control capabilities, and provide services for underserved communities.
The selection process must prevent Chinese infiltration or espionage, while mitigating unpredictable changes in affiliations from foreign service providers.
Linus Chiou studies physics and history at the University of Virginia.
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