Russia’s Potential Use of Space Nukes to Devastate the US and Global Stability
What does the future of warfare look like? America got a glimpse way back on July 9, 1962, when t he United States fired a Douglas Thor missile well beyond the Kármán Line that marks the beginning of outer space.
Known as Starfish Prime, the 110,000-pound intercontinental ballistic missile carried a 1.4 megaton W-49 thermonuclear warhead that was detonated high over the Pacific Ocean.
That one bomb not only damaged Hawaiian electrical systems and equipment hundreds of miles away, it damaged or knocked out more than one-third of the worldâs 24 orbiting satellites.
Today, six decades later, there are more than 5,500 known satellites orbiting the Earth. 3,500+ are American, 541+ Chinese and 172+ Russian.
And unlike then, these satellites are key to our modern society, carrying Internet signals, communications and global positioning systems.
Knocking out these satellites with a nuclear explosion would ground drones, cut off troops â even blind an entire nation to a first-strike attack.
Thatâs why Moscowâs likely plan to deploy space-based weapons is so terrifying.
Itâs the Pearl Harbor of the 21st Century â a strategic move that changes the world.
Russiaâs path to blinding America in space would come about in multiple if not interconnecting ways.
One would be the brute detonation of nuclear warheads in outer space using its vast array of ICBMs, including the Sarmat, Putinâs new super-heavy ICBM that can carry 10 or more nuclear warheads.
Another would be deployment of anti-satellite weapons, which, like nuclear weapons, would violate the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that Washington and Moscow signed.
Russian ASATs would take on a number of delivery forms, including aerial- and ground-based missiles and space-based lasers.
Regardless of which, the goal would remain the same: to turn off the eyes and ears of America.
The results could be devastating. Not only could battlefields in Ukraine begin to play out in Moscowâs favor, so too could any future movement of Russian troops in Eastern and Central Europe against NATO member states â particularly in the strategically significant Suwalki Gap that separates Russiaâs Kaliningrad exclave from Belarus.
The risks to US national security extend far beyond Russia. Blinding Washington in this manner puts MAD â mutually assured destruction â in a whole new light.
How MAD can you get if you lack the ability to find out who even fired a missile and from where.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and President Bidenâs national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, were quick to downplay the immediacy of the danger.
The intelligence community has been monitoring the Russian program and donât believe an antisatellite launch is imminent.
That is a dangerous mistake. Now is not the time to underplay this emerging threat. Chinese President Xi Jinping knows any successful invasion of Taiwan would require turning off US satellite intelligence â and upending American logistics of militarily coming to Taipeiâs aid.
This danger cannot be treated lightly â nor without a robust US response to Russiaâs apparent determination to weaponize space in violation of the OST.
Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang are watching. The West is in a global ideological war with Russia and China thatâs increasingly turning hot in areas beyond Ukraine.
Ukraine, Oct. 7 and Beijingâs machinations against Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific are all interconnected.
Space is the logical final frontier for Putin.
The Kremlin has clearly realized Ukraineâs most valuable asset aside from the countryâs fighting spirit are the eyes and ears US and NATO are affording Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals.
Putin therefore is shifting his fight to deny Ukraine that advantage.
It is increasingly clear the OST entered into by the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom alongside 110 other countries in banning ânuclear weapons or any other kinds of mass destructionâ in space is becoming untenable.
It is just another in the long list of broken Russian promises.
Putin since invading Ukraine for the second time in February 2022 has proven he is willing to upend every aspect of the global order thatâs been in effect since World War IIâs end â and in the process repeatedly abrogating Russiaâs own obligations as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
Weaponizing space is just one more step in that direction. Washington must wake up.
Add hardened networks, satellites, weapons, etc. to the effects of EMP and radiation to the growing list of things the Biden administration needs to accomplish.
Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer.