Elon Musk’s refusal to have Starlink support Ukraine attack in Crimea raises questions for Pentagon

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s refusal to permit Ukraine to use Starlink web products and services to release a marvel attack on Russian forces in Crimea final September has raised questions as to whether or not the U.S. army wishes to be extra particular in long run contracts that product or service it purchases may well be used in battle, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall mentioned Monday.

Excerpts of a brand new biography of Musk printed via The Washington Post final week printed that the Ukrainians in September 2022 had requested for the Starlink support to attack Russian naval vessels primarily based on the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Musk had refused due to considerations that Russia would release a nuclear attack in reaction. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and claims it as its territory.

Musk was once no longer on an army contract when he refused the Crimea request; he’d been offering terminals to Ukraine for unfastened in reaction to Russia’s February 2022 invasion. However, in the months since, the U.S. army has funded and formally gotten smaller with Starlink for endured support. The Pentagon has no longer disclosed the phrases or price of that contract, bringing up operational safety.

But the Pentagon is reliant on SpaceX for excess of the Ukraine reaction, and the uncertainty that Musk or another industrial seller may just refuse to supply products and services in a long run struggle has led house techniques army planners to rethink what wishes to be explicitly laid out in long run agreements, Kendall mentioned all through a roundtable with newshounds on the Air Force Association conference at National Harbor, Maryland, on Monday.

“If we’re going to rely upon commercial architectures or commercial systems for operational use, then we have to have some assurances that they’re going to be available,” Kendall mentioned. “We have to have that. Otherwise they are a convenience and maybe an economy in peacetime, but they’re not something we can rely upon in wartime.”

SpaceX additionally has the contract to assist the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command expand a rocket send that may briefly transfer army shipment right into a struggle zone or crisis zone, which might alleviate the army’s reliance on slower airplane or ships. While no longer specifying SpaceX, Gen. Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command, mentioned, “American industry has to be clear-eyed on the full spectrum of what it could be used for.”

As U.S. army funding in house has higher in contemporary years, considerations have revolved round how to indemnify industrial distributors from legal responsibility in case one thing is going improper in a release and whether or not the U.S. army has a duty to shield the ones companies’ belongings, comparable to their satellites or floor stations, if they’re offering army support in a struggle.

Until Musk’s refusal in Ukraine, there had no longer been a focal point on whether or not there wanted to be language pronouncing a company offering army support in battle had to agree that that support may well be used in struggle.

“We acquire technology, we acquire services, required platforms to serve the Air Force mission, or in this case, the Department of the Air Force,” mentioned Andrew Hunter, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, era and logistics. “So that is an expectation, that it is going to be used for Air Force purposes, which will include, when necessary, to be used to support combat operations.”