When that happens, there will be no satellites. There will be no way to remotely operate any equipment. Mere navigation and communication will be difficult again.
Any sort of unmanned equipment will have to operate autonomously, making deadly decisions in an unfamiliar and hostile environment. That's a tall order for modern AI.
The kind of war you are talking about is exactly the kind of war where small numbers of expensive F-35's will very quickly be destroyed and how quickly new weapons can enter the battlefield will be a major issue. The vast distributed supply chain is probably the number 1 issue with F-35's for that kind of a fight.
While not great as spy satellites, using flocks of cube satellites for communications would be very hard to shut down. A single launch could put hundreds of separate targets up which would need to be individually targeted. Similarly unmanned drones can fill in for spy aircraft in tactical situations and are very cost effective.
I can't say what the modern version of total war between modern supper powers would look like, but I very much doubt it would look much like WWII.
It's replacement are all supposed to be drones or at lest pilot optional.
That said, using obsolete hardware can be a budget issue. The Airforce also uses 8-inch floppy disks in missile silos for example, and sure they still work.