Three decades after the Gulf War earned the title of the first space war, the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are redrawing the rules of military operations in orbit, argues Frank A. Rose, a former US assistant secretary of state for arms control.
Writing in SpaceNews, Rose points to Starlink as the standout example of commercial space power. When Russia attacked Ukraine’s conventional communications networks at the start of the full-scale invasion, Starlink terminals kept Ukrainian forces online, a decisive use of commercial capability in modern warfare.
Positioning, navigation and timing is now a target as much as a tool. Jamming and spoofing of satellite navigation signals has been widespread in both theaters. During the 2026 conflict with Iran, interference spread across the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, feeding false positions to hundreds of commercial vessels, while the Black Sea has seen persistent disruption that endangers civil aviation and shipping. Analysts also suspect Iran of using China’s BeiDou constellation to sharpen its missiles and drones.
Commercial imagery has made battlefields transparent. Planet imposed a voluntary 14-day hold on some Persian Gulf imagery during the conflict, but Washington has limited authority to stop US companies from selling unclassified pictures, and European or Chinese operators sit outside its reach entirely.
The gravest concern is nuclear. The director of national intelligence’s 2026 threat assessment says Russia is developing a satellite that could carry a nuclear weapon as an anti-satellite capability. A detonation in orbit would damage satellites belonging to every nation.
Rose’s prescription: deepen government-commercial coordination, harden space systems against jamming and spoofing, and build the means to deny adversaries the use of space.
