WASHINGTON—Earlier this week, Ukrainian forces reportedly were forced to cancel drone missions amid sudden restrictions on Starshield, the military-grade version of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service, that interrupted their communications. Ukrainian officials and military units reported dropped connections and lowered operation speeds, although the full extent of the disruptions and the reasons behind them remain unclear.
By October 15, connectivity had been restored. But the incident exposed a vulnerability with implications beyond Ukraine.
Over the past several years, Ukraine has demonstrated how commercially available technology can be rapidly adapted for military purposes, often providing capabilities that would otherwise take years to develop and field. Indeed, there are certainly lessons to be learned from Ukraine’s success in rapidly getting new capabilities into the hands of warfighters. But the reported Starlink disruptions also illustrate a risk that deserves greater attention as the United States itself moves toward greater reliance on commercial technology or infrastructure: What happens when a military becomes dependent on capabilities it does not own, operate, or ultimately control?
1. What do Ukraine’s Starlink disruptions tell us about the risks of military dependence on commercial infrastructure?
It is important to distinguish between two related SpaceX technologies: Starlink and Starshield. Starlink is a commercial satellite internet service that uses a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit to provide connectivity through relatively small, portable ground terminals. Unlike terrestrial communications infrastructure, Starlink can provide service in areas where conventional networks have been damaged, destroyed, or are unavailable. This capability has made it particularly valuable to Ukrainian forces, whose communications infrastructure has faced persistent threats from Russian strikes and electronic warfare. Starshield, by contrast, is SpaceX’s defense-oriented offering, designed specifically for government and national security customers. While it draws on technologies developed for Starlink, Starshield incorporates additional security and mission-specific capabilities to support military communications, intelligence collection, and other national security operations.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Starlink and Starshield have become an important part of Ukraine’s military communications network, supporting command and control, situational awareness, intelligence sharing, and drone operations. To be clear, neither Starlink nor Starshield independently makes military decisions. Their communications capabilities, however, help connect sensors, commanders, and operational units, enabling the information sharing needed for threat detection and operational coordination. Recognizing the importance of satellite communications to Ukraine’s military, the Pentagon contracted with SpaceX to provide Starlink services.
According to Ukrainian military officials, the restrictions imposed on October 14 primarily affected military-grade Starshield services, particularly terminals operating aboard drones traveling at higher speeds. The restrictions reported interrupted connections and canceled missions, although there is no indication that Ukraine’s entire Starlink network was disabled. While connectivity appears to be back, questions remain about what caused the disruption and what its operational impact was.
It would be easy to see this as a connectivity problem, but the implications run much deeper. When a military builds its command-and-control arrangements, intelligence processes, and operational procedures around a particular technology, the continued availability of that technology becomes a basic assumption underlying how it plans and fights. Losing access to this technology can, for example, force units to improvise backup plans, changing how information flows and how missions are coordinated and executed. Even limited disruptions can create cascading operational problems.
Ukraine’s experience is a reminder that these dependencies can become vulnerabilities even when an adversary has not attacked the system. Commercial infrastructure may be unavailable because of technical failures, provider decisions, contractual restrictions, or circumstances outside a commander’s control. It should be a warning to any military increasingly reliant on commercial technology; those possibilities deserve the same attention as other operational risks.
2. Is the United States creating similar dependencies in its own military?
The Pentagon has been moving deliberately toward greater integration of commercial technology into military operations, and for good reason. Commercial firms have developed amazing capabilities in satellite communications, cloud computing, data processing, and artificial intelligence (AI) that would be expensive and time-consuming for the government to reproduce independently. Taking advantage of those capabilities allows the Pentagon to direct resources toward technologies that are not readily available in the commercial market.
The Space Force’s 2024 Commercial Space Strategy provides an example of this approach. The strategy calls for greater integration of commercial space capabilities into military operations, recognizing the contribution private providers can make to capacity, resilience, and operational effectiveness. Commercial satellite communications already play an important role in supporting US military operations, and the expansion of privately provided space services creates opportunities to improve connectivity and flexibility across the joint force. But the more deeply these services are integrated, the more important it becomes to understand the arrangements and contracts governing access during a crisis or conflict.
The Pentagon’s Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability program offers another example. Through contracts with private companies, the Pentagon is expanding access to commercial cloud computing across classification levels, including services intended to support operations at the tactical edge. These capabilities are part of the military’s broader effort to improve how information is stored, processed, and shared across the force. The use of multiple providers offers flexibility and helps reduce certain risks, but it does not eliminate the operational consequences of losing access to a particular service.
AI represents another area where commercial dependence may grow. In 2025, the Pentagon announced agreements with several commercial AI companies to accelerate the development and adoption of advanced AI capabilities for national security missions. These arrangements do not necessarily mean military operations have already become dependent on any particular model or provider. But as AI moves from experimentation into operational use, questions about computing infrastructure, software updates, licensing arrangements, and continued access to commercial services will become increasingly important to mission readiness.
There is, of course, an important distinction between Ukraine’s dependence on Starlink and Starshield, and the United States’ growing reliance on commercial technology. Much of the technology the Pentagon is adopting comes from American companies, giving the US government advantages in contracting, regulation, and access that Ukraine may not have. But American ownership does not necessarily mean an entirely American supply chain. Commercial networks, cloud services, and AI infrastructure can depend on components, manufacturing, and supporting services located outside the United States. The Government Accountability Office has identified gaps in the Department of Defense’s ability to track foreign dependencies across its defense supply chains. That doesn’t establish how much of the Pentagon’s commercial technology infrastructure depends on foreign suppliers, but it does suggest we should be careful about assuming those dependencies are insignificant. More importantly, even an entirely American-owned and operated service can become a critical operational dependency.
To be clear, commercial providers are not inherently unreliable. Many commercial systems offer levels of performance, scale, and redundancy that would be difficult for the government to reproduce. However, militaries need to understand the consequences of losing access to capabilities that have become essential to mission execution. Ukraine’s experience suggests that this question needs to be considered before a dependency becomes so deeply embedded that operating without it becomes difficult or even impossible.
3. What should US defense policymakers do to manage these dependencies?
The answer is not to abandon commercial technology or even insist that governments own every capability on which the military depends. That would sacrifice many of the advantages commercial innovation provides, including speed, scale, and access to technologies developed outside the traditional defense industrial base. Nor does government ownership automatically guarantee resilience. Military-owned systems can also fail, become obsolete, or be disrupted by adversaries.
Instead, the Pentagon should treat commercial dependencies as a core consideration in force design, acquisition, and operational planning. This begins with understanding which commercially provided capabilities have become essential to military operations. It also means anticipating what would happen if those capabilities were suddenly degraded or unavailable. Military commanders and acquisition officials should be able to identify which missions depend on particular services, how quickly operational performance would deteriorate without them, and what alternatives would remain available.
This assessment should extend beyond technical reliability. A commercial system may perform exceptionally well and still be subject to restrictions on access, changes in service conditions, contractual limitations, or provider decisions that a military commander cannot independently resolve or mitigate. These are not necessarily problems that can be addressed through technical redundancy alone. They require attention to contractual assurances, operational authorities, interoperability, and contingency arrangements—before a capability becomes indispensable.
It’s also important to remember that the United States has authorities, including the Defense Production Act, that allow the government to prioritize contracts and direct industry support for national defense. These provide important safeguards, but legal authority does not guarantee immediate access to a capability during military operations. The Pentagon still needs a plan for what happens when that capability is unavailable, regardless of the government’s ability to compel its restoration.
The Pentagon should also ensure that these dependencies are reflected in operational planning and exercises. As I have witnessed firsthand, military forces routinely prepare to operate with degraded communications, disrupted intelligence support, or limited access to critical infrastructure. Those preparations should include scenarios in which commercially provided services become unavailable for reasons unrelated to enemy action. A force that can operate effectively only when its commercial networks, cloud services, or software systems are available may be carrying risks that are not apparent during normal operations. Perhaps the best way to test for those vulnerabilities is through exercises, so that they are exposed and addressed before entering a real combat environment.
Finally, US policymakers should ensure that decisions about commercial technology account for the operational consequences of dependence. The US Space Force’s Commercial Space Strategy, adopted in 2024, already acknowledges many of these concerns, including the importance of resilience and managing the risks of commercial integration. The challenge is turning those principles into acquisition decisions, contractual protections, and operational plans that reflect how the military actually intends to employ these capabilities.
Of course, these recommendations are easier to implement for militaries with extensive resources and the luxury of not fighting a war on their own soil. For countries such as Ukraine, which has fewer resources and faces immediate battlefield demands, commercial dependencies may be unavoidable. Their choice is between relying on that service or going without it altogether.