Private infrastructure in geopolitical conflicts: the case of Starlink and the war in Ukraine

Abstract

Privately owned infrastructures play a central role in the unfolding of geopolitical conflicts. While academic contributions generally support this argument, businesses are mostly treated as enablers or spoilers of state action rather than actors in their own right. This article develops a theoretical framework around the relationship of state and transnational corporations in times of intense global competition, combining it with a political–economic perspective on how private ownership of transnational infrastructures shifts this relationship. It argues that private businesses develop and operate infrastructures for profit-seeking purposes, but that this logic can be amended by preferences for political outcomes. The article undertakes an analysis of the role of Starlink, the world’s largest satellite constellation owned by US-based company SpaceX, in the events following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It reconstructs SpaceX’s initial decision to enable Starlink in Ukraine and its ensuing strategic readjustment that limited Ukraine’s abilities to retake Russian-occupied areas. The findings support the relevance of both profit-seeking and political motives for explaining businesses’ decision-making, with substantial implications for contemporary state–business relations. SpaceX viewed the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to secure capital and contracts, largely from the United States; at the same time, it sought to appease other states on which it depends, most centrally China. The findings furthermore demonstrate that states will seek to reestablish independence from private infrastructure where other forms of hedging fail. While China and the European Union opted to build their own satellite constellations, the United States relied on its economic pull to ensure SpaceX’s cooperation.