As Russia prepared for an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, commercial imaging satellites shined a light on their advancing troops and weaponry toward their shared border. This space-based, commercially-driven transparency provided clarity and helped to combat disinformation before the eventual unprovoked invasion.

Take this specific example: as President Putin declared that Russian units were returning to base on 17 February 2022, commercial satellites captured a newly constructed pontoon bridge that appeared overnight across the River Pripyat, a key river in Belarus less than four miles from the Ukrainian border. This bridge construction contradicted Putin’s claims and as reported by the media, was seen by Western intelligence and military officials as part of additional support infrastructure being put into place in advance of an invasion. 

At the outset of the invasion, Ukraine had no national space capability. But the availability of existing — and growing — commercial satellite services and advanced technology has drastically altered all nation’s access to space and thus modern day warfare. Ukrainian officials and civilians are able to communicate battlefield updates with peers around the globe, preventing the spread of false information and increasing the probability of allied support in favor of the Ukrainians. According to CNBC, “within days of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion – and following a request for satellite internet support via Twitter from Ukraine’s digital minister Mykhailo Federov – SpaceX began sending Starlink terminal kits to Ukraine and has since sent thousands.” Starlink has extended a critical communications lifeline to Ukrainian forces despite repeated Russian attempts to black out the country both with kinetic strikes and cyberattacks. Starlink satellites flying as low as 130 miles above the battle space beam down high-speed internet access, allowing front-line Ukrainian troops in the hotly contested east to communicate with a chain of command that stretches hundreds of miles. 

Federov also called on commercial satellite companies to share imagery and data directly with Ukraine. The US government contributed through information sharing. When preparations for the invasion began, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) “increased and accelerated several efforts that were underway commercially,” according to David Gauthier, director of commercial and business operations at NGA.  There is now a new hybrid relationship between government and commercial space-based capabilities.  A relationship that is mutually beneficial and is strengthened by its interdependence.

Now a year into the invasion, Russia’s continued unprovoked invasion of Ukraine sheds new light on the evolving state of warfare. The first rather obvious observation is that space is critical to the conduct of modern warfare, whether in terms of precision targeting with GPS-guided weapons, commercial communications or satellite surveillance. Further, the vast amount of commercial imagery collected has created a battle space in Ukraine that is one of the most transparent in history. Moreover, it now appears that Russia’s electronic warfare capability is not as good as we thought. Russian forces have a fearsome reputation when it comes to electronic warfare and they go out of their way to reinforce this narrative. At one point, the state-owned news agency Sputnik proclaimed Russian EW capabilities “render aircraft carriers useless.” That boast seems to be much more for show than for substance. Even the handful of attempts to disrupt the StarLink network have not amounted to much.  However, we should not assume that Russia has used its full arsenal of electronic warfare options.

More ominously, Russia continues its trend of making provocative statements about the international order in space. As the US and the west continues to leverage more commercial satellites for intelligence and communications work, Russia has issued a warning that these may become a “legitimate target” for wartime operations.

The war in Ukraine has taught us that a nation does not need to own satellites or have a strong space program to participate and thrive in modern wars. The ‘fog of war’ will always exist for combatants on the ground, but new factual data sources collected from space can help illuminate, clarify, and level the information playing field and benefit citizens, businesses, humanitarian actors, or military and intelligence officials who seek greater visibility into activities happening around the globe. No longer are governments the sole arbiter of what citizens know. This light can expose the misinformation and misdeeds of nefarious actors, creating more informed and participatory responses by the media, humanitarian organizations and global citizens. 

As the old saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant for democracies. The free world has a distinct advantage given the advanced capabilities of the commercial imagery ecosystem to provide that sunlight and shepherd in a new era of shared awareness. We must leverage that advantage to illuminate and expose nefarious actions and actors. This perspective can lead to greater awareness on the road to shared truth, strengthening respect for individual liberty and collective security. Given that truth is on the side of justice, it is incumbent to provide the global public with the information they demand and the insight they deserve. 

L'articolo Intelligence, transparency, communications: the role of satellites in the Ukraine War proviene da InsideOver.

In his Address to Congress last April, President Biden issued a call to action to deliver on the promise of democracy.  “Can our democracy overcome the lies, anger, hate and fears that have pulled us apart?  America’s adversaries – the autocrats of the world – are betting it can’t.”

As we consider this global call to action, we should look no further than one of liberal democracies strongest players – the commercial geospatial industry.  With a mix of entrepreneurial spirit, risk capital, and enlightened policy, this sector is ready, willing and able to contribute to the global transparency that advances our common cause by creating coherence from chaos, and separating fact from fiction.  The data generated from satellite imaging technology provides the visibility that helps us partner as allies and combat disinformation.  In other words, geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) can identify and see through the obfuscation.

Commercial imaging companies openly capture images that can be leveraged strategically to shed light on complex geopolitical events.  This light can inform a public narrative that supports our interests and exposes the misinformFor example, in mid-2020, the location of detained Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Western China became increasingly difficult to find.  The Chinese mapping platform Baidu Maps previewed blank reference map tiles over the areas in question, ultimately masking the reality.  Investigative journalists at Buzzfeed turned to commercial satellite imagery from Planet to uncover thousands of prisons and internment camps in the region, exposing China’s false narrative.

Technology now enables a near-continual sensing of all of the world’s activity.  Such a holistic collection will enable a detailed model of the planet and all that is happening on it.  There are many benefits of such a model including increased agricultural yields, strengthened supply chains, enhanced natural disaster preparedness and response, accurate measurements of the environment, and real-time detection of nefarious actors.  However, such a world will demand a rethinking of privacy itself, requiring us to find the optimum balance between the benefits of this technology, their implications for our privacy, and the potential for misuse.

First, it’s important to know who is doing the collecting and what is done with the collected information.  In the past, the collectors were governments – for good and for bad – and the original driver for remote sensing technologies was national security.  However, with the recent increase in innovation and technological advances from both government and commercial sectors, the potential for transparency escalates exponentially, an attribute I find pertinent to our success as a liberal democracy in this technological age.

With this increase in imagery and data collection, we will be able to cross-connect data streams from human activity to physical reality; ultimately answering the questions, “Where are the people?” “Why are the people there?” and “Where are they going to be tomorrow?”  Clearly, there are good and bad uses of the answers to these questions.

Properly thought through, an era of radical transparency can lead to a healthier planet and a more humane world.  However, achieving such a world means also striking a balance between access and control, openness and privacy, and good and evil.  As the expansion and growth of such surveillance is likely inevitable and incessant, we must calculate a means to deal with such a reality.  If approached with caution and aforethought, this will benefit our society exponentially.

Anticipating the ways this radical transparency might be misused is the most likely solution for establishing regulations that will encourage the good and thwart the bad.  We must first determine who controls our data, who can access it, why it can be accessed, and with what oversight.  We also need to firmly establish what role the derived data would play in our legal framework.  We ultimately need to answer the question, “How might our society adapt, innovate and evolve to harness the power of geospatial data and technology while mitigating its ethical challenges?”

As we seek to address that question, I suggest we all take a heavy dose of humility as these are unchartered waters and precipitous actions could have deleterious effects.  It is essential this situation is addressed with deliberate and well thought out actions, as well as the flexibility and ability to modify rules and regulations as we better understand the ramifications and consequences of our decisions.  I would observe that until we can agree on data privacy norms, it will be hard to create lasting rules around transparency.  The stakes are enormous.  In fact, one could see this discussion and debate as existential, especially as it pertains to human freedoms.

Our transparent society is here to stay, no matter how hard one tries to eliminate their digital presence.  If you think of this transparency as light – as I do – it shines both ways.  I believe transparency is good for liberal, democratic societies.  As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brandeis observed, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”  I further believe the bedrock of civil discourse is trust; not so we agree on every issue, rather, but so we appreciate the other perspective and empathize with differing views.  I posit that transparency favors justice – and that evil lurks in the dark.

Thus, we should be considering our society’s core strengths – entrepreneurial spirit, risk capital, market competition and respect for the individual and their rights – as we rethink what the notion of privacy should mean today.  If we anticipate many of the ways that the abundance of data might be misused, we can establish rules, regulations, and governing authorities to encourage the best uses while thwarting bad actors.  If approached with thought and caution, this technology has the potential to make transparency a force for good and change the world for the better.

President Biden concluded his April State of the Union speech by acknowledging that our democratic form of government was being tested and challenged as never before — especially by regimes with very different social compacts.  A transparent world reduces confusion and increases shared awareness and trust.  It is in that world that I see democracies innovating, competing and winning.

L'articolo The perils of “transparency”: welcome to tomorrow’s world proviene da InsideOver.