Private actors have always shaped geopolitics, but rarely have they controlled something as immediately consequential on a battlefield or in a hospital as commercial satellite internet. The Starlink constellation operated by SpaceX moved from novelty to strategic infrastructure during and after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. What began as rapid humanitarian assistance evolved into a de facto communications backbone for military and civilian life alike. Early public-private deliveries of terminals and free service kept central command nodes, hospitals, and civil society connected when terrestrial networks failed. Those initial shipments, and the patchwork of donor funding that followed, made Starlink indispensable to Ukraine’s resilience.
That dependence created a paradox. A private corporation developed and deployed capability at scale, but the operational use and political consequences sit in the domain of states. Washington engaged SpaceX to provide more secure, militarized access through the Starshield program, formalizing what had been an ad hoc arrangement and acknowledging the technology’s battlefield value. Contracts expanded Ukraine’s access to Starshield, bringing a tranche of terminals under an encrypted, government-focused layer intended to reduce jamming and interception risks. This formalization is consequential: it binds a private provider and a major military customer into longer term dependency relationships.
At the same time, SpaceX leadership has signaled limits on how the service will be used. Company executives publicly stated that Starlink was not intended to be weaponized, and the firm has at times sought to constrain specific operational uses such as long-range drone strikes. Those interventions underline a hard truth - commercial policy choices by a corporation can have immediate tactical effects on active campaigns. The result is a new governance tension. Important operational decisions about connectivity now rest with a firm whose incentives and risk calculations do not always align with those of the states and civilians that depend on its networks.
The Gaza case sharpens different fault lines. In the aftermath of the October 2023 Hamas attack and the subsequent Israeli campaign, satellite connectivity became a humanitarian question as much as a security one. Elon Musk offered Starlink to internationally recognized aid organizations in Gaza. Israel initially resisted, fearing misuse by militant groups, then negotiated conditional approvals for limited humanitarian deployments. In mid 2024 Starlink service was announced as active at an Emirati-run field hospital in Rafah after coordination that involved Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The result was life-saving remote medical consultations and a window into how private satcom can be marshalled for humanitarian ends when states choose to permit it. But the Gaza precedent also shows that permissive use is contingent on state approval. Where access is politically contested, humanitarian actors may or may not gain connectivity depending on bilateral deals, regional politics, and corporate willingness.
Comparing the two theaters reveals both convergence and contrast. In Ukraine the lines between humanitarian, commercial, and military uses blurred rapidly as donors, governments, and SpaceX scaled up operations. The Pentagon and allied governments funded and integrated more secured service, formalizing a relationship that had grown organically in crisis. In Gaza the primary narrative involved a private offer for humanitarian use met by national security concerns and conditioned consent. Both episodes show that satellite internet is now a strategic good - one that can uplift civilian services and at the same time alter military calculus.
There are three strategic implications worth emphasizing for policymakers and analysts.
First, resilience cannot be delegated. States and alliances should treat commercial satcom as critical infrastructure. The rapid recourse to Starlink in Ukraine exposed a near-term capability gap - alternatives exist, but they are not yet as pervasive, affordable, or operationally integrated. Formal procurement, standards for encryption and anti-jam resilience, and investment in sovereign or allied capacity are required to avoid single-provider chokepoints.
Second, governance frameworks are overdue. Market-driven corporate choices about service scope, geofencing, or acceptable use are not substitutes for international norms and legal rules that govern wartime dual-use capabilities. The current mix of corporate terms of service, bilateral approvals, and ad hoc contracting creates unpredictability. Multilateral mechanisms could provide transparent criteria for humanitarian exemptions, technical safeguards against misuse, and dispute resolution when national security concerns clash with humanitarian need.
Third, the privatization of operational control reshapes accountability. When a private operator can effectively throttle connectivity, that operator becomes a strategic actor whose decisions carry moral and political weight. That dynamic raises questions about oversight, liability, and the proper balance between corporate risk management and public responsibility. Contractual safeguards - for example, guaranteed minimum service levels for humanitarian actors, audited procedures for disabling terminals, and independent oversight of any militarized variants - should be negotiated and standardized where possible.
Starlink’s use in Ukraine and Gaza also suggests a practical policy agenda. Governments should accelerate investment in interoperable satellite layers that can be rapidly activated in crises. They should push for common technical standards to prevent easy spoofing or resale of terminals into unauthorized hands. And they should build a diplomatic and legal architecture that clarifies when and how private satcom can be authorized for humanitarian missions without becoming a vector for escalation.
The transformation at hand is profound. Within three years a commercial constellation moved from emergency novelty to a tool of statecraft and battlefield utility. That is a testament to rapid technological progress and to the agility of private actors. It is also a reminder that the era in which critical battlefield and humanitarian infrastructure can be left to market discretion is ending. The next phase must be about durable partnerships between states and industry - partnerships structured to protect civilians, preserve legitimate military boundaries, and reduce the strategic leverage that any single company can wield over conflict outcomes.
Absent those steps, the global order will continue to be punctuated by episodes in which a firm’s boardroom calculus or a CEO’s public statements change the options available to governments and civilians on the ground. That is a precarious place to depend on in matters of war and life. The practical answer is not to nationalize capability across the board. It is to build resilient, multilateral, and legally constrained systems that channel private innovation into reliable public goods for the long term.