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SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket lifts off on its third launch from the company's Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, U.S. March 14, 2024.
Hard Numbers: SpaceX has a rocky reentry, Norway to hit NATO target early, British MPs are OOO, Somalia debt is canceled, Berlin techno is protected
2: Norway announced that the country intends to meet its NATO defense spending target of 2% this year — two years ahead of schedule — citing a “serious” security situation. Sweden, the alliance’s newest member, says it will do the same. The two Nordic states can now rest assured that at least Donald Trump would protect them from a Russian invasion.
49: A new analysis found the workday for members of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s parliament is 49 minutes shorter than the 1997-2023 average, clocking in at only seven hours and nine minutes long. With all that extra time on their hands, Kate Middleton should be found in no time.
99: This week, 99% of Somalia’s debt was canceled by the Paris Club — a group of officials from major creditor countries including the United States, Japan, and Russia. Somalia’s information minister, Daud Aweis, called the move a “big milestone in the country’s journey to financial recovery.”
150: The number of UNESCO heritage sites in Germany rose to 150, with six entities being added this week. Notably, an Intangible Cultural Heritage designation was given to Berlin’s techno scene for its contribution to German culture. Oonts Oonts.Photo of Israeli forces operating in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday Nov 5, 2023, in an area from which many attempts to attack the Israeli forces through tunnel shafts and military compounds were detected.
Hard Numbers: Half of Hamas, Hunter Biden's new charges, SpaceX’s stratospheric valuation, George Santos talks for a price, China charges for “deception”
50: How effective has Israel been at killing Hamas fighters? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims that the IDF has eliminated around 50% of Hamas’s mid-level battalion commanders after two months of fighting. Israel has so far failed to assassinate senior leaders like Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas in Gaza, and Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas’ armed wing. According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, the overall death toll in Gaza has now surpassed 17,000.
9: Hunter Biden was charged on Thursday by a California grand jury with nine tax charges — three felonies and six misdemeanors that include failing to file and pay taxes, tax evasion, and filing false tax returns. This is in addition to the federal firearms charges the president’s son faces in Delaware, where he’s accused of breaking laws against drug users having guns.
400: George Santos may have been expelled from the US Congress, but a hustler’s gonna hustle. Blazing new trails post-politician life, he’s now offering pay-to-play personalized video messages to the world on the video-sharing website Cameo. For a mere $400, you too can have a personalized message from the disgraced ex-congressman. Sen. John Fetterman has already had Santos troll his scandal-plagued colleague from New Jersey. In just a few days, Santos’ earnings on the platform eclipsed his $174,000/year congressional salary. On the other hand, Cameo is a lot less risqué than that other pay-to-play video site Santos was accused of spending campaign donations on.
175,000,000,000: Elon Musk’s SpaceX is looking to sell shares at a price that values the company at a whopping $175 billion. That would rank the company above media juggernauts like Comcast and Disney, but still well behind the trillion-dollar club that includes Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. Still, this is good news for Musk: The valuation of his other company, X (the artist formerly known as Twitter), has dropped to $19 billion, less than half the $44 billion he paid for it last year.
100,000: The popular Taiwanese rock band Mayday faces a 100,000 yuan (more than $14,000) fine for something that would cripple some of your favorite Western acts (be careful out there Ashlee Simpson). A viral video on Weibo accuses the band of lip-syncing at least five songs at a concert in China in November. A rarely enforced law in China actually bans artists from lip-syncing before paying audiences since it is “deceptive.”
Elon Musk's Starlink cutoff controversy
I think it's a fascinating question. And it gets to a point of what I call a technopolar world, not unipolar, not bipolar, not multipolar, technopolar. In other words, for all of our lives, we've talked about a world where nation states, where governments are the principal actors with sovereignty over outcomes that matter critically for national security. Now, here you have the Russians invading Ukraine. One of the biggest challenges to the geopolitical order since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. And yet, a core decision about whether or not Ukraine will be able to defend itself is being made not by the United States or NATO providing the military support, but by a technology company. Now, the Ukrainian government is being quite critical of some of the decisions that Elon Musk has made in restricting the use for Starlink, for the Ukrainians.
I don't think that's fair criticism by itself. I think we need to recognize that Starlink's availability to the Ukrainians was absolutely essential in helping the government and the military leaders actually communicate with their soldiers on the front lines. And if it wasn't for Starlink, and if it wasn't for the role of many other technology companies, largely in the United States, not at all clear to me that Zelensky would still be in power today. Certainly the Ukrainians would have lost a lot more territory and they'd be in much worse position than they are. So I think that the Ukrainians still owe Elon a significant debt. But I also raise a much bigger question, which is, should an individual CEO, should an individual centibillionaire be making these decisions about outcomes of life and death for 44 million Ukrainians?
And they're the answer is much more concerning. Because, of course, Elon and all of these technology companies, they're not treaty signatories with NATO. They don't have any obligation to do anything other than Netflix and chill. And yet they're absolutely indispensable for national security in these countries as increasingly national security becomes a matter of not just what happens with bombs and rockets, but also what happens in the digital world, what happens in cyberspace, what happens in communications, in the collection of intelligence. As Elon and others become principal actors in a military industrial technological complex, accountability for those decisions is very deeply concerning if it's only in the hands of those individuals. Now, I think it's a little easier with SpaceX, because SpaceX is, after all, a company that is overwhelmingly funded by the US government, by the Pentagon and by NASA. And so ultimately, either legally through regulation or informally through pressure on the basis of providing those contracts, there is certainly a level of influence that the US government would be able to have over a SpaceX to ensure that Starlink is made available fully to the Ukrainians as US. and NATO's allies see fit.
Just as the American government would take vigorous exception if SpaceX and Starlink were suddenly having their technologies made available to American adversaries. Having said that, keep in mind that there is no other viable technology that is presently available. So, if it's not Starlink, it's nothing for the Ukrainians. And what about a country like Taiwan? Very concerned increasingly that we see the status quo on Taiwan eroding from the United States, as Biden says that he would defend Taiwan and as the Americans put export controls on TSMC, the semiconductor company, and from the Chinese side, as the Chinese keep sending over drones and aircraft to invade Taiwanese airspace. Well, if there were cyber attacks from mainland China into Taiwan, would Starlink be made available in Taiwan the way it has been in Ukraine, even though imperfectly in Ukraine? And the answer to that, I suspect, would be absolutely not, because it would prevent Elon Musk from doing effective business in mainland China, including Tesla. Would the Chinese use that leverage against Elon in a way that the American government had not been against SpaceX?
Absolutely they would. And so what does that mean? Does it mean that that just means Taiwan doesn't get that ability to defend itself? Or does the US government have to somehow, through force majeure, nationalize the technology and take it away from SpaceX or force SpaceX to provide Starlink to Taiwan? Or does the US government have to build its own alternative, where it has direct ownership of such a company and technology. Look, the fact is this is a very, very messy piece of geopolitical power where increasingly technology companies are acting as sovereigns. And until and unless those questions are answered, we are increasingly living in a technopolar world.
That's it for me. And I'll talk to you all real soon.
Starlink logo seen on a mobile device with Ukraine on a map in the background.
Is Musk hedging his bets on Ukraine?
Elon Musk’s Starlink is the most prominent of a new generation of low-Earth orbit satellite networks making a name for themselves this year by providing internet service in conflict zones and other geopolitical hotspots. Instead of using a handful of expensive-to-launch high-altitude satellites, these networks deploy thousands of cheaper low-orbit systems. This type of network may still be more expensive to use than terrestrial cables, but it allows operators to beam the internet into places with limited infrastructure on the ground to support it.
We asked Eurasia Group expert Scott Bade to explain how these networks are being used and what the implications are.
Where are these companies taking their services?
In Ukraine, earth imaging companies such as Maxar and Planet Labs have been taking detailed pictures of what’s happening on the ground. Some of that has been made available to the public — that’s how we saw the famous images of the Russian convoy stalled on a road leading into Kyiv, for example. But these companies are also feeding intelligence directly to the Ukrainian government, US authorities, and NATO.
Starlink, the satellite service of Musk’s SpaceX company, has played a more active role recently by helping Ukraine maintain internet connectivity since the Russian invasion. It has protected access to a uncensored internet in occupied areas, thwarting Russian disinformation efforts. Perhaps more importantly, Starlink has provided the Ukrainian military command with the means to communicate with its troops even behind enemy lines. This has led to more effective artillery targeting, for example.
The other place Starlink has been in the news is Iran after a Twitter user asked Musk to deploy Starlink over the Islamic Republic to keep Iranians online after mass protests prompted the government to restrict internet access. Musk responded by adding his voice to activists’ calls for an exemption to US sanctions for telecom companies, which the government granted. Musk has said Starlink is now active over Iran, but we don’t really have any evidence that it’s been used.
How big of a challenge do these services pose to authoritarian regimes?
Though they’ve proven effective at thwarting Russian efforts to control communications in a conflict zone, it will be more difficult for them to challenge authoritarian regimes on their home turf. Their main limitation is that they still require physical terminals on the ground. In Ukraine, Starlink is working in conjunction with the government, which is doing all it can to get the service into the country. In Iran, on the other hand, the regime is doing everything it can to keep the service out.
But if you can overcome that obstacle – somehow sneak terminals into the country, for example – satellite systems represent a potential threat to regimes that restrict access to the internet.
How have these regimes reacted so far?
Iran called the US’ decision to provide operating licenses for internet services a violation of its sovereignty. It blocked Starlink’s website and said it will not allow any terminals into the country.
A more serious risk comes from Russia and China, which are very wary of Starlink’s potential military uses. Russia has repeatedly threatened Starlink and recently tested an anti-satellite missile. And it has other ways to disrupt satellites. It launched a cyber operation against Viasat, another satellite network, right before it invaded Ukraine. Some voices in the Chinese military have also called for the development of anti-satellite capabilities that would allow it to attack Starlink.
The US and NATO have pointedly declined to clarify if satellites are covered by the alliance’s Article 5 collective defense clause. That ambiguity is likely enough to deter any attempt to shoot them down for now, but further cyberattacks wouldn’t be surprising.
How comfortable do these companies feel with their new geopolitical role?
Many Western satellite companies – and technology companies more broadly – have enthusiastically supported Ukraine in its struggle against Russia. SpaceX has played a particularly prominent role, and Musk has at times seemed too comfortable dabbling in geopolitics. He’s garnered some attention for tweeting out a peace proposal for Ukraine (which suspiciously resembled Putin’s) and a suggestion to resolve China-Taiwan tensions that was friendlier to China than to Taiwan.
Yet these and other actions have also raised suspicions that Musk is wary of angering Moscow and Beijing. In recent days, some Ukrainian officials have complained that Starlink wasn’t being activated quickly enough in recaptured areas, hindering the army’s advance. There was another report that Musk blocked the use of Starlink over Crimea because that could help trigger an escalation in the war. And Musk has publicly said that SpaceX can’t go on supporting the Ukrainians indefinitely without more US government support.
It’s obviously hard to know exactly what is going on for certain – there is a war raging – and Starlink is still in use by the Ukrainians. But Musk seems to be simultaneously embracing the potential to play a geopolitical role while also hedging his bets a bit. Russia has been threatening SpaceX, and China is a major market for Musk’s Tesla. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to start finding ways to be less involved in Ukraine.
What does the US government think about the actions of these companies?
Until recently, SpaceX and satellite companies seemed fully aligned with the US government on the Ukraine conflict. Even when they were acting on their own volition in the context of the war, they were doing so with the blessing of Washington – in fact the United States Agency for International Development has paid for some of the Starlink service provided to Ukraine.
That may no longer be the case. SpaceX has appeared to make some recent decisions on coverage independently of the US government. It appears that the firm is now again on the same page with US and Ukrainian officials – Musk and the Ukrainian foreign minister have exchanged complimentary tweets – and Musk wouldn’t want to intentionally undercut US policy. But he should be careful in the future to avoid giving the impression of deference to Russia and China to avoid angering US officials.
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Amazon satellites and Project Kuiper: next steps in Big Tech space race
Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center, Eurasia Group senior advisor and former MEP, discusses trends in big tech, privacy protection and cyberspace:
Amazon is to launch its first two internet satellites in 2022. Is Big Tech leading the new space race?
Well, yep. In many ways it is. Amazon is not only launching its CEO up there, but also satellites that would offer internet access for people all over the world, and that is a combination with infrastructure on the ground. This way, Amazon will try to open up more access and markets for its own services in developing countries that are yet untapped.
Is Amazon the only tech giant pushing the space frontier?
Well, not at all. Project Kuiper, which is named after the Dutch astronomer and planetary scientist Gerard Kuiper, is not the only corporate space adventure. Commercial space development is growing and companies will, on the one hand, see to control more of their own infrastructure and access, or they see commercial interests in providing such services to others. Elon Musk's SpaceX has 10 satellites as part of its Starlink telecom consolation, but we also see defense companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon launching commercial satellite service. The question that does rise, is what the consequences will be for the public interest and security considerations in this vast public sphere around the earth.
- EU's proposed DSA and DMA laws would broadly regulate digital economy - GZERO Media ›
- War in space? Time to update space law - GZERO Media ›
- Mission to the Moon, with Artemis II astronaut Jeremy Hansen - GZERO Media ›
- Artemis and the lunar economy - GZERO Media ›
- The satellite revolution in Low Earth Orbit - GZERO Media ›
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space flight & the new space race
Ian Bremmer shares his perspective on global politics this week with a look to outer space, in a special edition of (Out of The) World In 60 Seconds:
Was today's Blue Origin space flight a big deal for humankind, or just a big deal for Jeff Bezos?
I'm not sure the space flight itself was such a big deal for humankind, but I do think the advances in space technology, which are increasingly stepping up, they're much quicker. I mean, reusable rockets that land exactly where they took off. That's very different from the space shuttle a couple of decades ago, and very exciting in terms of the ability to not just engage in space tourism, but explore both what's outside of our Earth and beyond. So yeah, I think the fact that's being driven by the private sector is a big deal for the United States, a big deal for the planet. I, having said that, the planet that we're right now all on, is the one that matters, I think, the most to everybody for the foreseeable future.
Did Richard Branson steal Jeff Bezos' thunder?
No, I don't think he did. I think more relevantly, Richard Branson saved his company, Virgin Galactic. They had a problem. One of their planes or rockets, if you will, had malfunctioned. There were huge delays, and now suddenly they showed right before Bezos. They got an enormous amount of media attention. Branson's always been a genius at that. I'm much happier that he decided to apply himself to outer-space travel or near-space travel and tourism rather than trying to run for political office, frankly. It's better aligned towards that, and I think it will get more attention to space. Frankly, as someone who always loved space stuff and dinosaurs, when I was a kid, I think that's a good thing.
Will this flight have geopolitical implications like the 20th-century Space Race?
Sort of in the sense that in the United States, NASA has long been seriously underfunded. A lot of scuttled missions, not a lot of grand vision and ambition like we used to in the days of the Apollo missions. The Chinese, the Indians, the Emiratis are doing a lot more of that than NASA is, but the United States is still, in many ways, way out in front of the space race because of Jeff Bezos, because of Elon Musk. In fact, I'd argue that it's the guy that's not in the headlines this week or last week that matters most for space. That's Elon. He's kind of dominating near-Earth orbit. The truly interesting thing about Elon Musk though, and this is geopolitical, is that SpaceX is really an arm of the American military. It's like over 90% of all of their contracts are with NASA and the Pentagon, while Tesla is doing enormous business with high tech in China, with Chinese partners. And the ability for Elon to engage in that geopolitical balancing act. It is probably the most problematic business model out there of all of the advanced tech players. I'm not sure it's sustainable and I'm not sure which one he's going to choose. So we'll see where that goes.
Israel-Palestine de-escalation likely by weekend; next space race?
Ian Bremmer shares his perspective on global politics on World In 60 Seconds (aka Around the World in 180 Seconds) :
Biden says he expects significant de-escalation between Israel and Hamas. Will the conflict end soon?
He wouldn't say that if he hadn't already been told that by Bibi Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, as well as the fact that Israeli Defense Forces have already been saying that they've engaged in significant deterioration of Hamas's military and leadership capabilities. That means that within days you likely get a ceasefire. It's going to be back and forth. The Israelis saying Hamas have to go first. And even when you get a ceasefire agree, then you get more violence, and you get an outbreak. So it's a bit of a rolling back and forth as opposed to suddenly there's just no more military engagement. But I would be really surprised if in another week we see this level of military conflict and of deaths on the ground, primarily in Gaza. In fact, I'd say really by the end of the weekend, I would think that this is going to calm down significantly. Biden wouldn't be saying that otherwise.
Does Putin have a role in the Israel-Palestine conflict?
Not a big one. I mean, certainly Putin has come out and been more assertive in opposing Israel, supporting the Palestinian cause, but there is also a lot of informal political engagement between the Kremlin and a lot of Jews that had emigrated from the former Soviet republics into Israel, particularly on the Israeli right. And that's a reasonably strong connection. Netanyahu has a pretty good line into the Kremlin and Putin himself, and that's not gone away. So I would say it's pragmatic, I wouldn't say it's a very significant relationship.
Has India lost control of the pandemic?
Completely different question. I'm not sure they ever had control of the pandemic. They just didn't have as many cases. And now they have no idea how many cases they have. You've seen 4,500 deaths in the last 24 hours, that they know about, in reality it's probably two to five times greater than that. It's the largest number of known deaths in any country since the pandemic began over a year ago. And of course, with the exception of China, India's got the largest population in the world by a large margin. So the per capita deaths, aren't so large compared to some other countries around the world, but the impact for variants and spread is massive. And that is, of course, a danger. There are going to be a lot more variants by the end of the year, and India just has no capacity to really get a handle on that. The testing levels in India are de minimis, and it's not like they have control of all their borders. So all of that is pretty problematic, though not for the countries that are engaging in rollout of vaccines across the board like we are in the US, and increasingly in Europe.
China successfully landed a Rover on Mars. Another space race for the United States?
Well, I mean, China's investing a lot, but to the extent there's a space race, I'm not sure it's with NASA, as opposed to with Elon Musk and SpaceX. I mean, increasingly the private sector in the United States, they're the ones that are doing the most in terms of the future of space. Is that aligned with American national security? Not necessarily. We'll see where that goes. Certainly SpaceX, I mean, their biggest contracts are with the US government because they've got the ability to get payload up. And so the US is basically renting it from SpaceX. But increasingly Elon Musk is dominating lower earth orbit. That's pretty interesting. He's one guy. What happens if he changes citizenship? What if he leaves? And what's the US government going to do about regulating that? It's going to be an interesting question, but for now, I think I'd be more concerned about things like technology in the US as well as things like Taiwan, South China Sea, the Uighurs, a little bit less so about space.
- As India gasps for air, a government “still in denial” - GZERO Media ›
- The climate cost of Big Tech's space obsession - GZERO Media ›
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- Israel and Hamas on the brink of war - GZERO Media ›
- Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space flight & the new space race - GZERO Media ›
- Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space flight & the new space race - GZERO Media ›
The climate cost of Big Tech’s space obsession
Should wealthy individuals and nations shoulder more of the burden in addressing climate change? Pulitzer Prize-winning climate journalist Elizabeth Kolbert argues that Big Tech leaders like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk should shift more of their focus to fighting for our own planet's survival, instead of space exploration. "We're doing as much as we can to make life difficult on planet Earth for ourselves. But there's virtually nothing we could do to make it as difficult as life on Mars, where there's, among other things, no oxygen." Kolbert, the author of Under a White Sky, discusses why it's so crucial for a few rich countries to bear most of the climate burden, since they're also the biggest emitters. Her conversation with Ian Bremmer is featured in the upcoming episode of GZERO World, airing on US public television stations starting this Friday, April 16. Check local listings.