Connectivity Infrastructure Is Not a Neutral Service

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 01:41:50 +0000

When SpaceX deactivated Russian military terminals in February 2026, a firmware whitelist did what sanctions committees and foreign policy briefings could not — and no elected body authorized it.

That’s worth sitting with for a moment. A private company, operating satellites in low Earth orbit, made a real-time decision that degraded the command-and-control capability of a nation-state’s military by roughly 90%. Russian units that had been relying on smuggled Starlink terminals — acquired through Central Asian black markets and deployed along the Donetsk frontline — suddenly went dark. They reverted to VHF radios and fiber-optic improvisation. The whitelist was technically elegant, operationally decisive, and politically unaccountable in any meaningful democratic sense.

Starlink on BRYSGO

Connectivity Infrastructure Is Not a Neutral Service