🧵Loved working on this one - The widespread use of #Starlink by Ukrainian troops in defending against Russia is accelerating development of drone warfare, according to experts. Here are the benefits, risks & legal challenges of its militarization:
c4isrnet.com/battlefield-te…
2. While SpaceX likely never ruled out potential military use, it was not a case they emphasized. Today, there's no question that Starlink’s prominence in #Ukraine war has militaries all over the world considering & looking to make greater use of it.
3. Currently, Starlink antennas are too large/too heavy for small drones. However, there has been momentum from the defense industry to experiment. In Nov. #Canadian company RDARS, announced that it had successfully integrated Starlink equipment to its Eagle Nest ground station.
4. Via Starlink, ground station communicates w/ a control center, allowing the operator to control & receive imagery from its military Eagle Eye drone. While RDARS solely integrated dish to the UAV’s ground station, it has emphasized potential of installing it on the drone itself
5. Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in the #MiddleEast, has stated that Starlink was used to connect unmanned aircraft, vessels and underwater vehicles operated by allied forces in a NATO exercise in #Portugal.
6. With respect to drones, Professor David Burbach states that if high bandwidth commercial satellite links can be installed inside of one or more while functioning in flight, then this would make it possible for the operating country to control it far outside of its borders.
7. For any country or military to rely on Starlink does entail a number of security risks as well. Perhaps the most important one being that it is possible to geolocate the terminals, possibly giving away the physical positions of forces.
8. As a base station or flying drone emits radio signals, it can be intercepted by enemy forces using high power antennas across a wide array of commonly used bands. Achieving this might be harder in practice than is let on.
9. Todd E. Humphreys, professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas points out that the beams a Starlink terminal produces “are narrow (less than 5 degrees) and they hop around in frequency, which make it hard to get an actual lock on a terminal.”
10. This can in part be seen in #Russia’s large inability to locate satellites one year into the war, at least on a significant scale. SpaceX also applies geofences on user terminals to prevent their operation outside approved areas.
11. It also holds power of revoking one’s access to the network if it finds this one being used in violation of the user agreement/permitted instances. An implication of this, is the possibility for a country depending on Starlink to lose access to these services in middle of war
12. More subtle risk is that SpaceX, has an extensive access to information about clients, and by extension #Ukraine. Burbach says ‘If I were #Russia, I would be very interested in trying to get into Starlink by compromising an employee, or even getting an agent on staff."
13. SpaceX has undergone important expansion opening a rep office in #Azerbaijan in late 2022, and announcing it had applied to establish a Starlink branch in #SouthKorea. Additionally, a new satellite constellation should be up later this year to provide coverage in the MidEast.
14. While its services are currently active in app. 45 countries (mainly NATO members/US allies), experts say that it is not a far remote possibility that SpaceX could begin supplying customers in states unfriendly to the West, also interested in using Starlink for military appl.
15. While, as Professor Davide Scaramuzza argues, it is false to assume that Starlink can be associated with a country, important concerns to be raised regarding the development of its integration on unmanned platforms and overall uses.
16. In Jan, footage from a pro-Russian paramilitary group on telegram claimed that they had captured, disassembled Ukrainian drone, finding a Starlink dish modified to fit onto the system. While these reports remain unconfirmed, such events could likely happen on more frequently.
17. Proliferation of Starlink, less regulated than Starshield, for military purposes remains in its very early days. @SamBendett concludes, “whatever happens in #Ukraine is going to serve as a blueprint for future Starlink applications in drone warfare.”
18. As Starlink is further militarized, many complexities /sets of questions will arise. Two experts point out “If it is to be considered a proper military target, question then becomes how would Western governments respond in the event of an attack on single satellite?"
19. Such matters are also challenging considering that SpaceX has not only received significant subsidies from the U.S. government, but that the U.S. Agency for International Development reportedly also paid the company to send over 1,000 Starlink terminals to #Ukraine.
20. Heiko Borchert from Defense Artificial Intelligence Observatory says that this is an important space to watch, concerning whether #US would be willing to provide the same level of support to make Starlink available in the event of other conflicts to friendly governments.

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More from @elisabethmalom1

Feb 12
1/ Even as a defense reporter, I'll be the first one to admit that I have SO many questions and confusion regarding this “an unidentified object” shot down above Canada on Saturday Feb 11.
2. To summarize what is known at this point (from what I have gathered): #Canada incident was a small, cylindrical object smaller than the balloon shot down above Alaska. Was it a balloon? Wall Street Journal reported that it was a small metallic balloon with a tethered payload
3. One confusing statements I came across was by an official to the Washington Post: “All of the objects are similar in certain ways and then dramatically different in certain ways. What we don’t yet understand is what sorts of technology are in there.”
Read 5 tweets
Jan 14
🧵One of the most fascinating topics I've reported on: Unmanned technologies (both UUVs and UAVs) could offer the West an opening to catch up with #Russia, bogged down in Ukraine, in establishing a foothold in the warming #Arctic, according to experts.
defensenews.com/global/europe/…
2. The West is fairly late to the game against #Russia’s long-standing presence in the region (key to its national security and economic development), where experts agree it has succeeded in maintaining military superiority over the last decade.
3. The Kremlin has secured its #Arctic military capability primarily by banking on a “superior number of ice-breakers, its pioneering of Arctic-capable military drones, upgrading off-shore bases, missiles, runways and radar systems,” says @DrJamesRogers.
Read 19 tweets
Jan 13
🧵Don't send the fighter jets: I speak to drone experts & Hanwha Defense to make sense of the reasons behind #SouthKorea's failure to shoot down the North's drones on Dec 26. and what it must do to ensure this doesn't happen again. Latest for @defense_news
defensenews.com/unmanned/2023/…
2. While it’s unlikely the South’s military was unaware of NK drone development efforts, the “sophistication of the systems as well as their ability to swarm and evade detection” did come as a surprise, said Ken Gause from the US-based Center for Naval Analyses.
3. Gause said that this suggests “NK has benefitted from outside technology, potentially from Russia or Iran.” @David_Hambling also noted that #Russia’s use of Iranian drones against UKR “is likely to encourage NK to 📈 efforts in this direction, posing an asymmetric threat."
Read 11 tweets
Jan 13
🧵Weeks ago I set out on the quest to find out concretely what European states are doing to restock national ammo stocks in the face of growing shortages. Here are 4 trends that emerged from Czech R, Norway, UK, Germany, France, Romania, Slovakia & Poland
shephardmedia.com/news/landwarfa…
2. Based on interviews/research: states have opted to 1) hire more workers to increase production levels of national factories and overall workforce; 2) are placing long-term orders to European ammo producers to expand their production capability; 3) adding manufacturing lines.
3. Amongst the ones to have opted for the 1st option is #Czech Republic, who announced recently that it would be welcoming “thousands” of #Ukrainian experts and workers into the country to raise manufacturing speed and military capacity.
Read 9 tweets
Nov 23, 2022
🧵My latest: Turkey's first nuclear plant built and financed by subsidiary of #Russia's Rosatom will be operational in 2023. Under the agreement, Moscow may establish a commercial port in #Turkey with likely national and international security implications
al-monitor.com/originals/2022…
2. The Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant is located in a highly strategic location, some 200km from Cyprus and #NATO’s Kurecik early-warning radar station as well as near the Syrian border. It bills itself as the “biggest project in the history of #Russian-#Turkish relations"
3. While an original agreement for the construction was signed in 2010 between Akkuyu Nukleer (Rosatom subsidiary) and the Turkish firm IC Ictas, it was later on terminated and a new one was signed in July 2022 for TSM (owned by 3Russia-based firms) to undertake remaining work.
Read 21 tweets
Nov 22, 2022
🧵Interesting development in #Israel's position/contributions to Ukraine. In October, reports from Israeli media stated that national manufacturer ’Smartshooter’ would have provided UKR with its Smash2000 Plus interception drone system by way of #Poland acting as an intermediary.
2. According to this information, the Ukrainian army would have completed the installation of the system on light arms and aircraft to counter enemy drones. There’s been no visual confirmation of its presence in #Ukraine yet and Israeli authorities have remained silent
3. The Smash2000 Plus is based on its predecessor the Smash 2000, but further includes a counter-UAS mode that provides for the kinetic elimination of small, low-flying drones (so not necessarily effective against #Iran's Shahed-136s).
Read 5 tweets

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