by When Russia carried out a series of secret military satellite launches around the time of its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, American intelligence officials began to delve into the mystery of what exactly the Russians were doing.
Spy agencies later discovered that Russia was working on a new type of space weapon that could threaten the thousands of satellites that keep the world connected.
In recent weeks, a new warning has circulated from U.S. spy agencies: Another launch may be in the works, and the question is whether Russia plans to use it to place a real nuclear weapon in space, a violation of an half-century-old commitment. treaty. Agencies are divided on the likelihood of President Vladimir V. Putin going that far, but intelligence is still a pressing concern for the Biden administration.
Even if Russia places a nuclear weapon in orbit, U.S. officials agree in their assessment that the weapon would not be detonated. Instead, it would lurk like a ticking time bomb in low orbit, a reminder from Putin that if he were pushed too hard with sanctions or military opposition to his ambitions in Ukraine or beyond, he could destroy economies without attacking human beings in the world. Land.
Despite the uncertainties, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken raised the possibility of the Russian nuclear initiative with his Chinese and Indian counterparts on Friday and Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Blinken’s message was forceful: any nuclear detonation in space would destroy not only American satellites but also those of Beijing and New Delhi.
In addition, U.S. officials and outside analysts say, global communications systems would fail, causing everything from emergency services to cell phones to the regulation of generators and pumps to malfunction. Debris from the explosion would scatter around low-Earth orbit and make navigation difficult, if not impossible, for everything from Starlink satellites, used for Internet communications, to spy satellites.
Since Putin has made clear his disdain for the United States, Blinken told them, it was up to the leaders of China and India, President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to dissuade him from what could become a disaster.
In a statement on Saturday, the State Department said that in his meetings Blinken had “emphasized that the pursuit of this capability should be a cause for concern.”
“He will continue to raise this in additional meetings at the Munich Security Conference,” the statement continued.
It was unclear how much of the intelligence on the previously unreported 2022 Russian satellite tests Blinken shared when he met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi or India’s foreign minister. , Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Some intelligence officials had objected to sharing too much about what the United States knows because details of the Russian program remain highly secret, U.S. officials said. But others argued that the United States needed to share enough to convince China and India of the seriousness of the threat. During the Munich meetings, the two men digested the information, officials said, with Wang repeating China’s usual lines about the importance of peaceful uses of outer space.
“Relying on our biggest adversary to send messages to Moscow is not a good practice, but in this case, if the information is true, China would have a strong interest in transmitting the message,” said Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla. Intelligence Chamber. Committee, he said in an email Saturday.
Blinken was attempting to replicate what U.S. officials believe was a series of successful warnings to Putin in October 2022, when there was serious alarm in Washington that Russia was preparing to use a tactical nuclear weapon on Ukraine. Putin backed down on the threats, although it is still unclear how much pressure he was under, especially from Xi, who has strengthened ties with Moscow.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union briefly tested nuclear weapons in space before the ratification of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits the placement of nuclear weapons of any type in orbit, as well as new nuclear detonations in space. A test conducted by the United States in 1962, launched from Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, was particularly damaging. The electromagnetic pulse, which exploded 400 kilometers into the atmosphere, destroyed electronic devices in Hawaii, disrupted telephone service there, knocked at least half a dozen orbiting satellites out of the sky and damaged others.
Realizing how harmful the test was, a year later the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treatywhich prohibited nuclear testing in the atmosphere or outer space.
If Putin were to deploy the weapon into low-Earth orbit, U.S. officials fear he would do more than simply violate the 1967 treaty. It is one of the last major arms control treaties still in force. Biden administration officials have expressed concern that if Russia violates it, other nations, such as North Korea, could follow suit.
For Putin, launching a nuclear weapon into space would intensify his growing confrontation with the United States and Europe. His inability to seize Ukraine, even with a much larger army, has vividly demonstrated the limits of Russia’s conventional forces. In the view of US and European intelligence agencies, that has made it more dependent on nuclear weapons and cyberattacks, its most powerful asymmetric weapons.
A senior intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive nuclear issues, said he thought Russia was developing space nuclear weapons because Putin believes none of his adversaries, including the United States, would risk a direct confrontation with Russia. Russia for the deployment of a satellite with nuclear weapons.
Another intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, said Putin might be betting that the threat of a nuclear explosion in space is different from the threat of the destruction of Los Angeles or London. The official added that Putin would be threatening hardware rather than people, which he may believe gives him more freedom to deploy the new satellite.
Publicly, the White House has limited itself to describing the new Russian weapon as anti-satellite technology, without offering details. But officials have insisted it poses no direct threat to human populations.
“We’re not talking about a weapon that can be used to attack human beings or cause physical destruction here on Earth,” John F. Kirby, a senior national security official, told reporters.
The new intelligence came to light after a cryptic public warning Tuesday by Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, that the United States had new intelligence on a “serious threat to national security.”
Turner had been sending letters of concern about anti-satellite technology for weeks. He had become frustrated and feared that the administration was not taking him seriously enough, U.S. officials said, an allegation administration officials deny.
Turner’s comments Tuesday angered the White House and spy agencies because of their predictable effect: Reporters scrambling to learn more about the intelligence began uncovering details of the anti-satellite weapon.
On Thursday, Kirby said President Biden had ordered a diplomatic push, without describing the plan in detail.
“He has led a number of initial actions, including additional briefings to congressional leaders, direct diplomatic engagement with Russia, with our allies and partners as well, and with other countries around the world that have interests at stake,” Kirby said. .
Eric Schmitt in Washington contributed reporting.
