Kluman uses Taiwan F-16 to warn! Call on the U.S. government to take back control of Musk’s Starlink

Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman used the F-16 fighter jets used by the Taiwan Air Force as an example to question whether private companies should have critical support that can affect national security, and advocated that the U.S. government should take back control of Starlink from billionaire Elon Musk. He believes that Starlink is already an important communication system for modern warfare, and which countries can use this service should not be decided by individual business owners.

Kluman published an article titled "It's Time to Take Starlink Away from Elon Musk" on the personal comment platform Substack. Substack is an online platform that allows authors to publish e-newsletters and comments and pay for subscriptions. Kluman focused on the controversy over the restriction of Starlink services in Ukraine, believing that private companies' control of the use of key wartime communications may affect national security and war situations.

Kluman proposed a hypothetical scenario: Taiwan's air force uses F-16 fighter jets manufactured by Lockheed Martin of the United States. If the company suddenly cuts off parts, upgrades, ammunition and computer network support in order to reach a commercial deal with China, weakening Taiwan's defense capabilities, will Washington allow the company to refuse to resume support on the grounds of property rights? He used this to argue that private property rights are not without boundaries and that when corporate actions involve national security, the government should have the right to intervene.

Kluman also cited cases from the Second World War. The administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt took over the facilities of the retailer Montgomery Ward to deal with the impact of labor disputes on wartime mobilization. Kluman used this to illustrate that government intervention in private enterprises does not necessarily mean permanent nationalization, but may also be to ensure national security and wartime needs.

Kluman argued that communications and real-time information play a key role in modern warfare. Determining which countries can use Starlink involves foreign and defense policies and should not be controlled by business owners alone. He called on the U.S. government to try to take back Musk’s control of Starlink.