Europe's euphoria, Musk's switch

Since Wednesday much of Europe has been in a good mood. Democrats won both houses of Congress. In Texas they took every statewide office. And Elon Musk, who spent nearly half a billion dollars on these midterms, almost half of it in Texas, has very little to show for it. 

Enjoy it. But let me be the one to calm things down because for Europe this changes much less than people think.

Look at how the American system works. From 3 January the new Congress controls the purse and the subpoena. Its committees can hold hearings, call witnesses and make the administration's life difficult, and odds are, they will. But if history is a guide, a president whose domestic agenda is blocked acts where his hand is freest: in foreign and security policy. Sanctions relief for Moscow, arms deliveries, the talks over Ukraine; all of that is run from the White House, not the Capitol.

Then there is the part of the relationship that no election touches, because the state does not own it.

In mid-October, Starlink and Starshield terminals in Ukraine began dropping their connection whenever a drone flew faster than about 100 miles an hour. That was enough to cripple the interceptor drones Ukraine uses to defend against incoming Russian attacks. Who gave the order? Reuters reported that it came from inside the White House. The Wall Street Journal reported that it came from Musk. The Telegraph reported that Musk suggested it and Trump agreed. Musk said such limits are "decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS". Trump said it wasn't him, and that he didn't think it was Elon either. He then said Musk had restored access; Kyiv said the curbs were still there. Days later Musk wrote on X that a "loophole" had been closed. I honestly cannot tell you which way the power runs between those two men. I am not sure they can either. 

For Europe, it hardly matters. Poland and Germany have bought thousands of the Starlink terminals Ukraine relies on; European money, an American satellite network, and one man with his hand on the switch.

In March last year, when Radosław Sikorski, Poland's foreign minister, said Poland might have to look for other suppliers, Musk told him to "be quiet, small man". 

The historian Quinn Slobodian, co-author of the new book Muskism has a good phrase for this: "sovereignty as a service". You buy a capability you cannot build yourself, but the price includes the seller keeping a veto on its use. In 2007, after a cyberattack by Russia, we in Estonia learned that whoever controls your networks controls a good part of your sovereignty. Europe is learning the same lesson as its dependency first on Russian energy and then on American military capabilities and technology are challenged.

European alternatives are slow but real. The first launch of IRIS², the EU’s own satellite constellation, is planned for 2029. Eutelsat's OneWeb aims to reach about a thousand satellites by 2034; Starlink already has more than eleven thousand. And OneWeb relies on SpaceX rockets to get its satellites into orbit.

None of this will be fixed by the new Congress. Congress can subpoena a defence secretary. It cannot subpoena a satellite.

Europe has never been short of engineers. What it has lacked is the capital to invest in hi-tech defence and the will to pay more for something European when the American version is not only cheaper but working. If anyone has finally supplied Europe with that will, it is Elon Musk. Whether it outlasts this week's euphoria, we'll see.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves was President of Estonia from 2006 to 2016. He co-hosts The Continental Rift, a weekly video podcast on European geopolitics, with the American-Estonian comedian Andy Valvur.

Editor’s note:

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