America’s military dominance has long rested on a simple truth: we fight as a network. Our forces are not just ships, planes, and soldiers — they are a connected system of sensors, communications, and data flowing in real time. Break that network, and even the most advanced force on earth begins to lose its edge.
That is no longer a theoretical concern. In modern conflict, we are watching in real time what happens when communications are degraded. In Ukraine, electronic warfare and targeted disruptions have repeatedly interfered with satellite links, GPS signals, and battlefield coordination. Units that lose connectivity lose more than convenience — they lose navigation, targeting precision, intelligence feeds, and the ability to coordinate across domains. The result is slower decision-making, missed opportunities, and unnecessary risk to human life.
This is the future of warfare. And it is why the backbone of our national security increasingly depends not only on military systems, but on commercial communications infrastructure — especially satellite networks.
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Today, much of the U.S. military’s communications, navigation, and ISR architecture relies on a mix of commercial and government-operated space systems. These networks must function seamlessly, without interference, and with absolute reliability. That stability has not happened by accident. It has been built over decades through careful international coordination, technical standards, and shared rules that ensure one system does not disrupt another.
At the center of that framework is a concept most Americans have never heard of: equivalent power flux-density, or EPFD. It is a technical standard developed through international consensus to ensure that different types of satellite systems can operate in the same spectrum without interfering with each other. This is the foundation that allows global communications to function. That framework is now at risk.
The Federal Communications Commission is considering changes that would effectively rewrite or ignore these longstanding, internationally harmonized EPFD rules. The proposal may sound technical, but its implications are strategic. By loosening these constraints, the FCC risks allowing certain satellite systems to operate in ways that could disrupt others — introducing interference, downtime, and uncertainty into networks that our military depends on every day.
This is not just a regulatory tweak. It is a potential vulnerability.
The Department of War has long relied on the reliability of geostationary satellite systems for persistent, secure communications. Weakening the rules that protect those systems opens the door to disruptions that could create real operational gaps. Even short-term interference, such as systems “resetting” or connections dropping, can have cascading effects in a conflict environment where seconds matter.
At the same time, we cannot view this in isolation from the broader strategic competition we face. China is not standing still. Beijing is actively developing capabilities designed to contest and, if necessary, disrupt U.S. space-based communications. Its doctrine increasingly emphasizes the ability to blind and fragment adversary networks at the outset of a conflict.
In that context, abandoning internationally accepted rules is not just risky — it is self-defeating. For decades, organizations like the International Telecommunication Union have helped establish norms that promote stability, minimize interference, and prevent any one actor from gaining an unfair advantage in shared domains. Those rules have constrained competitors, including China, just as they have enabled innovation and growth.
If the United States walks away from that framework, we should not expect others to adhere to it. We will have handed our adversaries both a justification and an opening to do the same.
There is also a broader economic and competitive dimension. The current EPFD framework has enabled a diverse and competitive satellite ecosystem, supporting thousands of satellites and billions in investment. Changing the rules midstream risks picking winners and losers — favoring a handful of large players while undermining others that built their systems in compliance with the existing standards.
That is not how strategic industries should be governed, and it is certainly not how national security should be managed.
At its core, this is a question of discipline. The United States has historically led not just through innovation, but through the creation and enforcement of rules that make complex systems work — whether in airspace, maritime domains, or space. Those rules are not constraints on power; they are force multipliers.
Weakening them, especially unilaterally, sends exactly the wrong signal at exactly the wrong time.
Congress and the broader oversight community should take a hard look at the FCC’s current path. The Office of Management and Budget and relevant congressional committees should ensure that any regulatory changes align with — not undermine — our national security interests.
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Because in the next conflict, we will not have the luxury of discovering that our networks are more fragile than we thought.
We already know what happens when communications fail. The only question is whether we are willing to invite that risk ourselves.
Chris Stewart is a former Air Force pilot and senior member of the House Committees on Intelligence and Appropriations, as well as a former member of the House China Task Force.