What Brendan Carr Really Said to Europe in That FT Interview

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr brought me back to antebellum Kyiv when he told the Financial Times that it’s time Europe must choose between Starlink and a Chinese alternative. When I was in Kyiv, I kept hearing this line of Russian merde thrown at the topic of Ukraine, as if the country is some Belle de Jour tied to a tree. It went that Ukraine is like a woman, torn between her man, Russia, and someone who has caught her eye, namely the West. Her man is harsh, the other, enticing. And since this was circa 2003, the more polite slingers of this merde asked whom would she choose.

By early February 2022, the tone had become harsher, with Putin telling what Ukraine should do by quoting a Russian Soviet punk band’s song about necrophilia and rape. According to Business Insider, Putin said, “Whether you like it or don’t like it, bear with it, my beauty“. I won’t go into further detail about Red Mold’s lyrics, but please connect the lines – in some quarters, Europe is seen as dead and, ultimately, incapable of warding off advances.

There is no difference for Europe between what Carr told the FT and what the Russians were saying before the war. The relationship between the presidentially appointed upper echelon of the U.S. government and its European allies has turned not toxic but abusive.

The Lyrics of Orange Mold

Carr complained about an anti-American bias in the European space industry, and urged its high-tech manufacturers to move production to America. While it’s nice that there’s Eutelsat, it’s time for European satcom providers to wake up and smell the Starbucks and choose between being with America or China.

It would be sick enough to wave it away as the ham-handed, undiplomatic attempt of a businessman-turned-functionary to face perceived realities. But Carr is no mere hack sent to deliver a message to Europe. The article explains well enough his political and tech background, but in short, he’s a connection between Elon Musk, his old boss, and the conservative thinkers, including himself, who are looking to recast the U.S. far beyond the Trump era, even if he were to complete a third term in office.

Don’t sit back and enjoy this

I recently heard an Irish space entrepreneur emphasize that today’s disruption in the industry is a good thing and that the people who create the new technical giants are often not people you would want to sit down to dinner with. This is a rather blinkered view of the takeover that’s being attempted, and for those in Europe’s space industry and on this side of the Atlantic in general, the rejection of this boorishness needs to be as firm as Ukraine’s.

What’s at stake is not only a technological base or sovereign capability, but the self-determination that goes with it. The view of Europe, from both Moscow and Washington, is that this is something Europe should not have. If those in power stay there after their current leaders have succumbed to old age, Europe becoming an oblast or a state will be their view for some time to come.