In May 2022, the conflict in Ukraine was called the world’s first commercial space war. In January 2023, the head of the U.S. Space Force noted that Ukraine demonstrated space is critical to modern warfare.
But has space proven to be catastrophically decisive?
As the conflict enters its third year, it has become clear space power has limits. Based on experience in Ukraine, it’s worth examining what space can and cannot do to win wars. It’s also worth underlining that wars are still decided by weapons and manpower.
Since before the start of the conflict, U.S. space companies have provided Ukraine vast amounts of commercial imagery for intelligence and surveillance purposes and high-bandwidth satellite communications capabilities, helping Ukrainian armed forces deploy military resources on all fronts as effectively as possible.
They deployed smart munitions that used Global Positioning System data and steered Starlink-guided drones to their targets.
Commercial space capabilities also revealed to the world what was happening in Ukraine, in high resolution and near-real time, such as when the world watched Russian tanks bottlenecked along the highway to Kiev in the opening days of the war.
Russia was well aware of the threat from space, hacking Viasat as the war started and trying to jam Starlink signals.
Making the best use of space
Ukraine made the best use of space during the war’s first several months. It also capitalized diplomatically on Russia’s mistakes and blunders, as well as their atrocities against civilians, captured in satellite imagery, to build international support and debunk Russian misinformation.
Russian space power, built on aging Soviet-era technology and systems, was never able to effectively support the war. Using its asymmetrical space advantages to the fullest, at a time when Russian forces also faced logistical and morale problems, Ukraine achieved its greatest war gains by November…
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