The United States is developing a new instrument of military domination: the power to disable another country’s battlefield without firing a single shot.
From Selling Weapons to Controlling Warfare
But Elon Musk’s Starlink and Starshield are introducing a potentially more intrusive form of dependency. Instead of merely supplying the weapons with which other countries fight, American companies are increasingly supplying the communications infrastructure through which those weapons operate. The distinction is fundamental. Traditional military dependency allows Washington to constrain a country’s military capabilities over time. Satellite-based dependency creates opportunities to influence military operations while they are underway.
A country may possess thousands of drones, sophisticated weapons and advanced surveillance systems. Yet if their effectiveness depends on satellite connections controlled by an American company or government, ownership does not necessarily translate into operational sovereignty.
Ukraine has just experienced the consequences. In October, Ukrainian military operations were disrupted when restrictions on SpaceX’s Starshield service prevented terminals mounted on fast-moving drones from maintaining connections above approximately 160 kilometres per hour. According to Reuters, the restrictions interfered with drone missions, targets and the interception of incoming attacks.
More revealing was the controversy surrounding responsibility for the decision. Reuters reported, citing American and Western officials, that the order originated inside the White House. The Trump administration disputed that account. Musk maintained that Starshield restrictions were controlled by the American military, while Washington publicly pointed towards SpaceX.
On October 24, Ukraine announced that normal operations had resumed. Musk subsequently accused Ukrainian forces of violating Starlink’s terms by employing the service for offensive drone strikes, an allegation Kyiv rejected.
The episode exposed something more consequential than a contractual disagreement. Ukraine’s experience illustrates what might be called infrastructural military dependency: a condition in which a state’s capacity to conduct military operations depends on externally controlled networks whose continued availability cannot be independently guaranteed.
This dependency is particularly powerful because it operates continuously. Unlike conventional arms restrictions, which may take months to affect military readiness, changes to digital infrastructure can have immediate battlefield consequences.
The Privatization of American Military Power
Starlink’s significance extends beyond Ukraine because its growing integration into American military operations is changing the relationship between commercial technology and state power.
SpaceX is not an ordinary defence contractor. Its satellite infrastructure serves civilian customers, commercial enterprises and military users across different jurisdictions. Its military-focused Starshield services, meanwhile, are closely integrated with the Pentagon. In May 2026, the US Space Force awarded SpaceX a $2.29 billion contract to develop a high-speed satellite data network connecting military sensors and weapons platforms. The programme reflects Washington’s broader ambition to integrate space-based communications into military operations.
Such integration creates a peculiar concentration of power. The American government possesses political and military authority, while SpaceX controls commercially developed infrastructure upon which military operations increasingly depend. Neither relationship is entirely reducible to the other.
Indeed, the Pentagon itself has experienced the consequences of commercial dependence. A Reuters investigation published in May reported that SpaceX sought substantially higher subscription fees for satellite connections used on American LUCAS attack drones during the war with Iran. The Pentagon reportedly accepted the increased charges, although Musk and Pentagon representatives disputed the reporting. If even the world’s most powerful military faces commercial pressure over access to critical communications, countries possessing considerably less bargaining power confront a much greater vulnerability.
Yet, this relationship also provides Washington with opportunities for geopolitical influence. An October investigation revealed that both the Biden and Trump administrations had repeatedly sought changes to Starlink availability in different countries. These requests included efforts to restrict access by Iranian-aligned groups and expand connectivity in strategically important locations.
The evidence does not establish that Washington has designed a comprehensive global strategy to make foreign militaries dependent on Starshield. It does, however, demonstrate that American administrations already recognise satellite connectivity as an instrument of foreign policy. The larger implication is that the boundary separating private commercial infrastructure from American strategic power is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.
For Washington, this arrangement offers advantages that traditional military alliances cannot always provide. Military partnerships involve formal commitments, diplomatic negotiations and political costs. Dependence on satellite services can emerge through commercial procurement, sometimes without any comparable public debate about the resulting strategic obligations.
A government need not host American military bases or sign a defence treaty to become vulnerable to American decisions. It may simply need to integrate externally controlled communications infrastructure into its armed forces. This is not necessarily direct American command over another country’s military. It is something potentially more subtle: the ability to influence the conditions under which that military can function.
The implications extend across Asia, where governments are adopting commercial satellite connectivity for maritime surveillance, military communications and increasingly sophisticated unmanned systems. The Philippines, seeking US support to confront China in the South China Sea, faces particularly difficult questions about the security of externally supplied communications.
For countries seeking strategic autonomy, the danger is that technological modernization may simultaneously produce operational dependence. The more extensively their military systems rely on a single external network, the greater the potential consequences of losing access to it.
Sovereignty in Someone Else’s Network
The central political question is therefore not whether Starlink and Starshield are technologically useful. Their military value is precisely what makes dependence on them consequential.
Nor is this exclusively an American problem. One could argue that comparable dependencies could emerge around Chinese or other foreign-controlled satellite networks. What, however, distinguishes the American case from other possible instances is the combination of Washington’s established military influence and SpaceX’s unusually extensive satellite infrastructure.
Diversifying satellite providers, negotiating enforceable access guarantees and developing sovereign communications alternatives can reduce this vulnerability. But contractual protections alone cannot eliminate the political power that comes from controlling indispensable infrastructure.
The deeper transformation concerns the meaning of military sovereignty itself. In an era of network-dependent warfare, possessing weapons is no longer equivalent to possessing the independent ability to use them.
The next generation of military dependency may therefore be established less through formal alliances than through commercial agreements. Countries could discover that their most important strategic vulnerability is not a weapon they lack, but an internet/communication connection they cannot afford to lose.
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of international relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs
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