Musk's Democratic Mandate

Following on from yesterday's post on Elon Musk; he's coming under a lot of fire for not allowing Ukraine the use of the Starlink network to facilitate a Ukrainian attack on Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

Whatever you think of his myopic support for peace, which is not possible with an aggressor such as Putin (it would only ever be a hiatus), we need to look at whether he has a democratic mandate to facilitate an attack on Russia. 

The American government certainly does, as does any democratically elected government, but can an individual risk a potential escalation of hostilities on behalf of his or her country?

Let's pose a thought experiment. Say Boris Johnson, who is no longer a democratically elected politician, was fantastically rich and had managed to invent a very destructive thermonuclear device. 

Should he be allowed to hand that over to the Ukrainians, for whom the war is an existential crisis? The Ukrainians couldn't care less whether its use leads to a Russian attack on Britain - in fact they'd welcome it as a prelude to NATO piling in on their side. I'm not so sure, however, that either Britain or NATO would welcome it - but given Putin's desire for a confrontation with the West, he would most certainly welcome it.

Actually, I wouldn't put it past Boris to hand such a weapon over to the Ukrainians, regardless of the risk or the consequences for Britain - that's the way he is. 

The question is should private individuals, especially fantastically wealthy ones with the GDP of a small country, be allowed to take actions which could drag their country into a war when having no democratic mandate to do so.

I have no evidence to support this, but I believe that while a majority would support sending Ukraine weapons, only a minority would support getting into a full-scale war with Russia - and all that entails. So, while Musk may arguably have done the right thing, it's for the wrong reasons.

I suppose a government could sanction an action by an individual using plausible deniability, the defence being that the perpetrator is not under government instruction and the government can't be held responsible.

As an aside, it's worth noting that the West is currently providing Ukraine with just enough weaponry to be a nuisance to Putin and push him back in parts, but not enough to be decisive in allowing Ukraine to win the war - depending on what your definition of winning is. What are the morals of this?

This leads me on to a weakness within the West's Military-Industrial Complex - that of ownership of the means of destruction. The government owns the troops, seamen, ships, airmen, aircraft and stock of weapons, but to replenish the materiel and the means of delivery the government relies on the free market to supply it. Within a dictatorship the government will commandeer the means of destruction, whether at peace or at war. Perhaps there's an argument for the national defence industries of the West to be be nationalised? The downside of nationalisation, however, is that it would be subject to cuts in times of economic stress. There again, cuts to defence spending necessarily mean cuts in armaments.