ANALYSIS – But that's not all. While Tucker Carlson allowed Vladimir Putin to drone on endlessly about his version of Russian history during his recent servile chat, Carlson asked the dictator nothing about his nation's rapidly growing nuclear weapons and space warfare capabilities.
According to a 2022 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report on space security, Russian doctrine called for being able to target American satellites from the ground, air, cyber and space, using attacks that range from temporary jamming to outright destruction.
And Russia under Putin has been on a tear developing advanced nuclear weapons as well as space warfare capabilities, some which it may be sharing with America's other arch-enemy – Communist China. (RELATED: Intelligence Committee Chair Pressures Biden To Declassify ‘Serious National Security Threat')
And Republican lawmakers are now sounding the alarm over new intelligence that appears to point to a combination of the two Russian capabilities – a nuclear space-based weapon designed to target and destroy American satellites.
This could allow Russia a space-based nuclear weapon capable of wiping out America's satellite network, which the U.S. has no short-term ability to counter.
This concern is what prompted Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, to ask the White House to declassify information about an unnamed “serious national security threat.”
But is Turner's motivation somewhat political? Turner has publicly supported continuing to fund the Ukraine war effort.
CNN reported that: “Some lawmakers and US officials privately speculated that his effort to brief lawmakers on the intelligence — something the House Intelligence Committee voted on Tuesday night to do — might be an attempt to shore up flagging support for Ukraine.”
So maybe it is. But another question is whether this new threat is about nuclear-powered space platforms with electronic, or other, anti-satellite capabilities or actual nuclear weapons in orbit? (RELATED: Will Putin Attack Elon Musk's Starlink Mini-Satellite System Aiding Ukraine?)
As NBC News reported:
The main known unknown, publicly at least, is whether this is a space-based nuclear weapon in the most conventional sense of the term — nuclear warheads, atomic reactions, mushroom clouds. Or if, as many experts suspect, this is a nuclear-powered satellite carrying electronic weapons, which could cause havoc on Earth by crippling satellites that drive everything from weather forecasting and phone calls to wars and the global economy.
If it is the former — actual space nukes — that would be a violation of the United Nations' Outer Space Treaty of 1967. One of its clauses says that countries are not allowed to “place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, or on celestial bodies, or station them in outer space in any other manner.”
One of the reasons this treaty was signed is the same reason that stationing nuclear weapons in orbit would be so dangerous: a country could [let] loose a nuclear bomb from the heavens with very little warning. The sources said the Russian technology in question is designed to target American satellites, something experts say Russia — and other nuclear-armed powers — is more than capable of doing using intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, launched from the ground.
Nevertheless, actually deploying nuclear weapons in orbit “would be a new escalatory step by the Russian Federation, which has already trashed a lot of arms control treaties,” said Mariana Budjeryn, a senior research associate at the Project on Managing the Atom, part of the Harvard Kennedy School. “This would be putting a nuclear weapon in space — where there have been none before.”
CNN added:
…an anti-satellite weapon placed in orbit around Earth would pose a significant danger to US nuclear command and control satellites, said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. The US relies on such satellites – which he called “essential” – to ensure constant, seamless control over its nuclear arsenal.
Other countries have tested anti-satellite weapons in the past, but this would be an escalation, Kristensen said, and the US has made clear that it would react “very forcefully” to an attack on its nuclear command and control satellites.
“If it's orbital, it's a new level of threat [to the system], whether it's nuclear or not,” said Kristensen, who added that even conventional weapons on an orbital anti-satellite system could pose a significant threat to the US.
So, whether Rep. Turner's motivation for sounding such an alarm was political doesn't matter as much as the fact that Putin is building huge nuclear weapons and space capabilities to target American assets.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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