Europe can’t stay hooked on other people’s tech

As Ukrainians awoke to the news that Starshield has been restricted over Ukraine (and awoken by Russian missiles that arrived without warning), the case for European tech sovereignty just became even more urgent.

There’s still a lot unclear about what just happened with Ukraine’s Starlink-based Starshield system, including whether it affects systems paid for by other countries such as Poland. There was no notification to Ukraine from the US, even as ongoing missions were disrupted.

That lack of transparency is also part of the problem though and won’t help convince European taxpayers to buy more of this stuff, at least not without much stronger contractual and structural guarantees.

What’s more clear than ever though is that Europe urgently needs to invest in its own tech sovereignty. That means more European alternatives, more interoperability, more supply chain security.

That doesn’t mean we can’t use great tech from elsewhere when we choose, but it must be a genuine choice.

We gotta be able to walk away from suppliers just as easily as they can walk away from us.

It’s sure as hell not up to anyone else to decide whether we can defend ourselves.