Moscow’s race for the best spacecraft equipped with nuclear warheads may simply presage a new phase of rapid expansion of Space War I, say leading U. S. defense experts who have speculated about possible space clashes between Russia and the United States.
According to those researchers, Russia’s detonation of a nuclear bomb in orbit – if it were to destroy one or more US missile warning satellites – could in turn provoke a US reaction that would increase the size of its toughest weapons.
While simulating possible battles (adding area) between former Cold War foes, Washington-based nuclear weapons experts expect an all-out series of skirmishes imaginable, but not a large-scale exchange of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Kremlin’s push to expand an anti-satellite nuclear weapon may be aimed primarily at destroying the SpaceX Starlink satellites that have allowed Ukraine’s president to meet with his Western allies, the most sensible generals, infantrymen and citizens, said academic Peter Hays. at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, which has helped shape national security systems at the Pentagon over the past two decades.
“I think Russia’s nuclear ASAT is primarily intended to keep LEO [low-Earth orbit] proliferated satellites like Starlink at risk,” Hays told me in an interview. “Starlink is arguably the most vital formula for Ukrainians” leading the defense of a suffering country. democracy versus Moscow’s blitzkrieg of missiles against its cities and telecommunications towers.
The Kremlin has already deployed its fighter-bombers and missile brigades to strike Starlink terminals across Ukraine, and Elon Musk said Russia’s ambassador to the United States had personally warned him that the use of the SpaceX satellite and the generation of navigation through Ukrainian drone pilots could simply force Russia to start using tactical nuclear weapons to eliminate them.
With its new nuclear spacecraft, Hays says in a just-released report, “Modernizing Space-Based Nuclear Command, Control and Communications,” Russia may simply find that “the greatest military effectiveness of limited use of nuclear weapons would be to detonate a single nuclear weapon. ” . “in LEO.
A single bomb could destroy many advertising satellites, including the SpaceX spacecraft, that have helped protect Ukraine, explains in the report published by the Atlantic Council, a major US think tank.
“A high-altitude nuclear detonation,” Hays says, “would cause most, if all, LEO satellites that are particularly hardened against this risk to fail within weeks or even months. “
But what’s far more concerning, he predicts, is that Russia could simply direct its traditional or nuclear-tipped ASATs toward United States nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) satellites located in higher orbits.
An attack on those nuclear command posts in the area would cross a long-standing “red line” — or a mutually agreed upon demilitarized zone identified through Moscow and Washington — “which could simply cause a nuclear war,” he adds.
The United States began developing its nuclear command formula at the beginning of the space race in the 1960s with “a very small number of very expensive, sophisticated, incredibly capable satellites,” Hays says.
Because those easily trackable satellites can be prime targets for an adversary’s ASATs, he adds, the U. S. Space Force is a major target for an adversary. The U. S. Army is now preparing to complete the first-generation formula with a new NC3 spacecraft distributed in “constellations in highly proliferated orbits. “
Nuclear command spacecraft give the White House the ability to track missile launches and detect nuclear weapons detonations on Earth’s surface and in orbit, and talk to Pentagon leaders even about nuclear standoffs.
The long-running armistice protecting the United States and Russian nuclear command satellites could now collapse: Moscow could prevent Washington from coming into conflict with Ukraine “by threatening or attacking United States space capabilities,” Hays says. Putin can also simply “resort to an area attack as a ‘first salvo’. “
Russia is also weaving a defense network with like-minded regimes and nuclear weapons to challenge the United States and the UN-based order, Professor Hays tells me in the interview.
The NATO Secretary General agrees.
On the eve of President Putin’s recent visit to North Korea, NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg told the BBC: “Russia is increasingly aligning itself with authoritarian leaders. After Pyongyang funneled weapons to Russia, Stoltenberg said, Moscow overlooked North Korea’s “advanced generation of missiles and nuclear weapons. “programs. “
The two rebel regimes also signed a non-unusual new defense agreement that states: “In the event that one of the two parties enters a state of war through an armed invasion of one or more individual states, the other party shall provide army and other means. Assistance with all the means of your property without delay.
This means the United States would likely have to confront Russia and its ally, North Korea, as they threaten or launch coordinated nuclear attacks, Hays predicts.
North Korean infants and citizens celebrate the test of a hydrogen bomb. It’s possible that the North will simply join forces with Russia to coordinate nuclear strikes, a U. S. defense specialist says. (Photo via KCNA VIS KNS/AFP) / South Korea OUTSIDE / REPUBLIC OF KOREA OUTSIDE —-EDITOR’S NOTE—- RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE – MANDATORY CREDIT “AFP PHOTO/KCNA VIA KNS” – NO MARKETING NO CAMPAIGN ADVERTISING – DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CUSTOMERS, THIS PHOTO WAS MADE AVAILABLE THROUGH A THIRD PARTY. AFP CANNOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, LOCATION, DATE AND CONTENT OF THIS IMAGE. THIS PHOTO IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY AFP. / (Photo via STR/KCNA, VIS KNS/AFP via Getty Images)
“This situation and many other worrying situations are becoming more and more likely,” he said in the interview. “The Russians could also inspire the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or North Korea] to detonate a nuclear bomb in LEO. »
To prevent any attack on US satellites, even if they were aimed at independent corporations like SpaceX, Hays said the White House deserves to make clear that an ASAT or nutransparent attack on any US satellite would be an attack on the United States itself. under the agreement. Charter of the United Nations, and that it would reserve the corresponding right to respond by force in self-defense.
The U. S. Department of Defense has already taken a position suggesting that, in certain circumstances, it could protect spacecraft operators contributing to national security missions, said Mark Massa, deputy director for strategic forces policy at the Scowcroft Center. for Strategy and the Atlantic. Council. Safety.
The department’s leaders claim in the new industrial integration strategy that their shield against army aggression can simply be made bigger against advertising players, Massa told me in an interview. The DOD states in the strategy document: “Under appropriate circumstances, the use of army force may be ordered to preserve business assets. “
Since Russia began attacking Ukraine two years ago and Elon Musk was quick to offer a satellite network policy summit to save lives in the country, President Putin has sent his emissaries to the UN to threaten Moscow to start shooting down satellites. SpaceX.
If the Kremlin were to deploy its new nuclear-tipped spacecraft to bring this threat to light, it would be difficult to wait for the final results of this brilliant new phase of the First Space War, characterized by increasing clashes between the superpowers.
“A Russian nuclear detonation in space would be incredibly destructive, degrading or destroying thousands of government and advertising satellites of the United States and other states,” says Massa, a widely published expert on nuclear weapons and space security.
“Such an action would require a forceful reaction from the United States and the community, taking advantage of all the equipment of national power. “
A simulation of nuclear war between Russia and the United States, conducted by atomic weapons experts and war players at Princeton University, resulted in estimates that more than 90 million people were killed or injured in Russia, Europe and North America in the first hours of the conflict.
“This task is motivated,” the Princeton researchers explain, “by the desire to highlight the potentially catastrophic consequences of existing US and Russian nuclear war plans. “
Russia’s risky policy and the apocalyptic scenarios that any nuclear war would provoke highlight the immensity of the risks that atomic weapons pose to humanity’s long-term life, said Tim Wright, treaty coordinator for the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. in 2017 for its central role in the enactment of the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The barrage of threats introduced in all countries and continents underscores the urgency for all nuclear-weapon states to sign the nuclear ban treaty and begin dismantling their arsenals, he said. The universal adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons would constitute one of the greatest advances ever achieved in the progress of human civilization.
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