Translation Introduction:

In his article published on Defense One, Patrick Tucker questions the nature of the role of SpaceX satellites in the Ukraine war, and how this gives the company's owner, businessman Elon Musk, unprecedented influence over the Pentagon, which makes him This influence is used to influence issues that presumably belong to politicians and elected officials.

He goes on to question whether Musk, with his growing influence and authoritarian personality, has become a real threat to American democracy.

Translation text:

The dispute between SpaceX founder Elon Musk and the Pentagon over who will pay for Ukraine's satellite internet services illustrates how the future of democracy will be vulnerable to the whims of tech tycoons with authoritarian minds.

But in Musk's case, some of the blame rests with Pentagon officials.

Musk is considered a villain by some, and a hero by others.

While Musk has expressed his admiration on Twitter for "Donald Trump" and the controversial American singer Kanye West, his company, SpaceX, owns the Starlink satellite group, which provides a large amount of Internet connectivity in Ukraine.

Until recently, in the eyes of senior military leaders, Musk represented a model for how to build projects in the age of information technology, as Musk was at the forefront of military conferences and lecturing at the Ministry of Defense about what should be done to complete its projects faster and cheaper, and he hosted the most prominent military leaders at a party A private dinner, of which they spoke frankly in front of public opinion.

For example, in 2020, retired General John Hyten, when he was deputy chief of staff, praised how quickly SpaceX was able to capitalize on its failures in missile launches: “Look at SpaceX in this country. Is "Stop? No, they sped off again, they changed the systems...They went in a completely different direction."

That tale drew a contrast between Musk's ingenious methods and the monotonous process of developing Defense Department technology.

For the US military obsessed with reshaping itself as a Silicon Valley start-up, Musk emerged as the embodiment of the ingenuity, perseverance, and evangelism of the prophets.

Musk and SpaceX owe a lot to the Pentagon and the US federal government, with the Air Force and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) among the company's first and most important backers.

The contracts for the DARPA Falcon program came in 2005, and NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Program in 2006, to help the company produce the "Dragon" spacecraft and the "Falcon 9" rocket, which will be the main driver of its growth, and Musk explained that NASA contracts were also important. for the survival of the company.

As a result, SpaceX has risen more quickly than most of its peers in the private satellite launch market, emerging as a major player in every area in which the US military uses space.

Musk's influence on the Pentagon

But how dependent is the Pentagon on Musk?

In recent years, the US military has paid extraordinary attention to how it has become increasingly reliant on space to do its job, particularly with the establishment of the Space Force Command within the military.

In the coming years, the Ministry of Defense is preparing to launch hundreds of new satellites to identify and track threats, such as hypersonic missiles.

Satellite imagery will become even more important for intelligence gathering, as well as for battlefield maneuvers.

Advanced communications satellites that transmit vast amounts of battlefield information from one point to another are a cornerstone of the Pentagon's plans for so-called "joint comprehensive warfare."

From launching image satellites to building missile tracking satellites, and of course, satellite communications via Starlink, SpaceX has become

The advantages that Starlink provided on the battlefield to the Ukrainians gave Musk a measure of leverage over the Ukrainian people.

(Reuters)

Last week, amid Musk's public threats to charge the Pentagon for Starlink services in Ukraine that SpaceX initially provided free of charge (and retracted his comments days later), Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon's deputy press secretary, said that "SpaceX is not There are other entities that we can certainly partner with when it comes to providing Ukraine with what it needs on the battlefield."

However, Sabrina did not mention other alternatives to SpaceX, which says a lot about the current state of space access.

The Pentagon does not rely heavily on Starlink at the moment, but Ukraine does depend on it entirely, as the satellite communications capabilities provided by Musk play a major role in countering the invading Russian forces in Ukraine.

From Donetsk to Frankfurt, Starlink provides Ukraine with rapid use of intelligence to maneuver Russian forces, as well as connecting Ukrainians with arms maintenance officials and suppliers in order to quickly return and replace damaged weapons.

The advantages that Starlink provided on the battlefield to the Ukrainians gave Musk a measure of leverage over the Ukrainian people.

As Russia ramped up its threat of nuclear war, Musk decided to use his leverage, and he did so at the same time as asking for money from the Pentagon to continue providing Starlink services.

A few weeks ago, Musk suggested on Twitter that Ukraine should simply cede Crimea to Russia.

Ukrainians and others have sought to alert Musk that Crimea was illegally acquired and, by definition, Ukrainian in their eyes.

In turn, the Kremlin continues its campaign of persecuting the Crimean Tatars, and uses the peninsula as a center to push hostilities into Ukraine and extend its dominion to the Black Sea.

The Ukrainians resented that Musk spoke on their behalf and their interests.

In fact, American experts on Russia, such as Fiona Hill, a former US intelligence official and now chief researcher at the Brookings Institution, accused Musk of recycling Russian views on Twitter.

Musk responded by retweeting an op-ed written by podcaster David Sachs, in which he warned that "neoconservatives and the resurgent left" are taking the United States into nuclear war.

Has Musk become a political risk?

Musk is becoming more and more comfortable with the role he plays as a super authoritarian (Reuters)

It is too arrogant for an American technology pioneer to have his opinion replace democratically elected presidents and officials in the entire Western world, international institutions like NATO, hundreds of diplomats, foreign affairs gurus, journalists, freedom advocates, and most importantly the Ukrainians themselves (no matter how we agree with his views). biased towards Russia or not).

So the very thing that makes Elon Musk a successful tech entrepreneur is the same thing that makes him a political risk.

The Defense Department's bureaucracy is now moving at an accelerating pace, and there is a reason for this, as well as the steadfast persistence within its institutions to keep away from risk.

The reason is that the leadership of the Pentagon is accountable to the public and Congress, and while Pentagon decision-makers can and must create a new relationship with challenging risks and remove bureaucratic barriers that are bogging their efforts, in the end they are still hanging by the neck. Through governmental and popular accountability mechanisms that promote and enable democracy.

As for SpaceX, since it is a privately owned company, it behaves and exercises its role as a start-up company, thus operating as a “Structured Monarchy”, as described in the book “From Zero to One”, a book that looks at The Machiavellian view of startups, written by Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist and enemy of democracy.

According to this model, Musk has become more and more comfortable with his role as a super-authoritarian. Activists who have highlighted his company's wrongdoing have exposed Tesla to harassment for their leaks to the media, and the man is known for his distrust of the press.

The book "From Zero to One" (communication sites)

However, Musk's arrogance is more than annoying and even dangerous when linked to the actual results on the ground of real military battles.

Eurasia Group President Ian Bremer said last week that Musk had told him that he had personally banned Ukrainians from using Starlink in Crimea, and that he had taken on the task of talking to the Russian president about the war before presenting his "peace plan", but Musk denied this.

Musk's authoritarian mindset may be an inevitable ingredient to starting electric car companies or designing a new rocket engine.

However, authoritarianism that applies to people and their sense of identity, homeland, justice and existence is undoubtedly the antithesis of democracy.

We are very close to a point at which the cause of democracy in Ukraine - and perhaps other countries later on - will be constrained by a paucity of tyrannical men and their unscientific and insightful opinions, and their personal inclinations and grudges.

Before they go one step further with Musk and his companies, military and intelligence officials should reconsider an important dilemma: How much do they want to rely on Musk and his ilk to protect democracy in the United States?

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This article is translated from Defense One and does not necessarily reflect the Meydan website.

Translation: Karim Muhammad.