At the end of last week, the US again started talking about the nuclear threat from Russia. Now in space. First, behind closed doors for congressmen, and then officially, representatives of the White House and the Pentagon announced a number of “hot” details. Subsequently, the topic was developed on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the European military. “Apostrophe” looked into what lies behind this and what the threat is.
Political statements
On February 9, RosSMI published a brief piece of news that did not immediately attract serious attention: “The Soyuz-2.1v rocket successfully launched a satellite into orbit in the interests of the Russian Ministry of Defense.” Only later, against the backdrop of resonance in the United States, did Russian propagandists begin to actively disseminate it.
The US Congress released information about the new threat to Russia on February 14.
The head of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Turner, reported a “serious national security threat” to the United States and invited parliamentarians to review the intelligence. Subsequently, White House National Security Council coordinator John Kirby said that the United States had contacted Moscow about this threat.
"We are not talking about weapons that could be used to attack people or to cause physical destruction here on earth. However, we are closely monitoring this Russian activity and will continue to take it very seriously," he said.
Further, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the new threat with his Chinese and Indian colleagues. According to the New York Times, the top US diplomat insisted that a nuclear explosion in space could harm both Indian and Chinese satellites, therefore Putin should be pressed together.
This topic was developed: through the mouth of the commander of the German Space Command, Major General Michael Traut, the catastrophic consequences of the use of nuclear weapons in orbit were voiced.
“No one can withstand such an action - not a single satellite, not Chinese, not Russian, not American, not European. If anyone thinks rationally, then no one uses such weapons in space,” said Michael Traut.
How and why
A nuclear explosion in Earth's orbit can really cause a lot of damage. Moreover, such cases have already happened. The USA and USSR exploded their nuclear bombs in the upper atmosphere in 1961-1962.
“There will be no shock wave in space, but radiation remains - X-ray, electromagnetic, which can burn all the electronics around. Plus a flow of highly charged electrons that will affect the radiation belts around the Earth. As for satellites, it all depends on the power of the charge - on every kilometer square of power will decrease,” independent expert on space activities Andrei Kolesnik tells Apostrophe.
But in general, it is impossible to predict the consequences of nuclear explosions in orbit. It is possible that more harm may be caused to the Russian Federation than to others.
“From a technical point of view, I can say as a specialist, this is complete nonsense and stupidity. The USA and the USSR abandoned this in the 70s. Nuclear weapons in space, if something is blown up there, are indiscriminate. An electromagnetic pulse will also destroy other people’s satellites, and our own. There will also be atmospheric pollution, and no one knows where it will fall after a certain time. It may well be that it will fall on Moscow," says political scientist and nuclear missile weapons expert Alexander Kochetkov in a commentary to Apostrophe. - This could be taken seriously if Russia had previously conducted successful nuclear tests. But (now) they themselves don’t know whether they have combat-ready nuclear weapons, and sending unknown things into space is too expensive even for Russia.”
The deployment of any nuclear weapons in space is regulated by the 1967 International Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits “any objects containing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction” in orbit.
“Russia, as the heir of the USSR, fulfills the agreement, moreover, it is in fact an active participant in certain agreements on more balanced behavior in space. Together with China, they have been promoting their narratives on this matter at UN sites for two years in a row,” adds Andrei Kolesnik.
However, we may not be talking about weapons. The use of nuclear technologies in space has other promising directions.
“This is a mini-nuclear reactor, which is located on board the spacecraft and will provide the necessary energy for military equipment that can be placed on the satellite. This can be laser or electromagnetic weapons, space electronic warfare, that is, jamming and distortion of signals from enemy satellites "There won't be enough solar panels to generate such power. Therefore, a nuclear power plant is needed," notes Kolesnik.
Such developments were already in the USSR. However, so far only one concept is known - the "Crew" project, another name is "Zeus", notes Defense Express. In theory, in orbit it should change the orbit using a nuclear engine. However, at what stage of development it is unknown.
Is pumping up beneficial for everyone?
In this story, you should pay attention to the chronology of events. And what was happening in the USA at the same time.
“It should be noted that this was just before another attempt to somehow put pressure on US congressmen to vote for aid to Ukraine. That is, they noticed that the threat from Russia could be quite great directly for the United States. Because the Republicans insist that Ukraine, Europe, Russia are very far away. But space is global and relevant to everyone. But it didn’t work,” notes Alexander Kochetkov.
It is likely that Russian nuclear weapons in space can still be used as a political argument. Moreover, against the backdrop of the elections in the United States, there will be enough reasons. After all, the need to counter a new threat is a great opportunity to increase defense spending, which arms manufacturers would take advantage of.
All this, of course, does not mean that there is no threat at all. Russia can and will use new opportunities for nuclear blackmail around many topics.
“As a political scarecrow in conditions of little awareness of technical details, this is suitable,” Alexander Kochetkov is convinced.
How far the United States and other allies of Ukraine will succumb to such blackmail is another question.
But here lies another challenge. The Russian space industry has significantly degraded, even compared to the Soviet one. So the risk of a nuclear man-made disaster during the next Russian “saber rattling”, when another missile simply begins to fall apart in flight, is quite real.
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