Russian tests follow Musk’s Starlink; anti-satellite nuke would fill gap that Ukraine war exposed

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Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites played a pivotal role in slowing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and helped save Kyiv from complete collapse in early 2022.

Those same satellites may have sped up the Kremlin’s determination to level the playing field and neutralize that advantage.

Reports that Moscow may put anti-satellite nuclear weapons into orbit have consumed much of official Washington as the Russia-Ukraine war demonstrates the fundamental importance of satellites in modern combat and the extreme difficulty for an enemy to shut them down.

Employing an ASAT nuclear weapon in space could, in theory, have been Russia’s solution to denying Ukraine access to Mr. Musk’s Starlink system. Analysts say such an unspeakably dangerous move could destabilize the entire planet.

The chain of satellites proved resilient and helped preserve Ukraine’s internet and communications access in the early, crucial months of the war. That access allowed the Ukrainian army to fend off Russian aerial attacks and to target Russian positions, leading to a surprisingly strong showing for Kyiv and a series of embarrassing setbacks for the Russian military.

Russian forces have repeatedly tried to jam Ukraine’s access to Starlink, but analysts say they have found little success. The makeup of Mr. Musk’s satellites and their locations — relatively closer to Earth than other satellites — make the system difficult to defeat with conventional, Earth-launched weapons.

Ukraine makes no secret that Mr. Musk’s powerful Starlink satellite terminals have been critical despite the Silicon Valley billionaire’s reported reservations about having his technology used in war.

If the still-sketchy U.S. intelligence findings prove accurate, Russian President Vladimir Putin may view the use of cutting-edge ASAT weapons as the only surefire way to take Starlink and other such systems off the board in future conflicts.

Threat has arrived

Capitol Hill and the White House scrambled to respond to the leak this month of intelligence concerns about a possible Russian space nuclear weapon, and Mr. Putin felt compelled to weigh in with a denial about such plans.

Broadly speaking, the threat of anti-satellite weapons has been steadily approaching, in plain view of everyone, for decades.

“Soviet ASAT capabilities threaten U.S. military capabilities to some extent now and potentially to a much greater extent in the future,” researchers with the congressional Office of Technology Assessment wrote in a report examining how the Soviet Union could use anti-satellite, or ASAT, weapons to wreak havoc on the American military, economy, financial system and society at large. The report was issued in 1985, during President Reagan’s first term in office.

A fear is growing in national security circles that a dangerous confluence of events is taking shape. With public reliance on technology, such attacks would be far more devastating than ever before in human history. At the same time, U.S. adversaries may have unprecedented motivation to employ them, as evidenced clearly by Russia’s frustration with the inability to knock out Starlink.

The weapons could range from traditional missiles targeting one or more satellites to the detonation of a nuclear bomb in space, which could create a massive electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. On the grandest scale, such ASAT weapons could be unspeakably devastating to the American public and nations around the world. Cellphones would shut down, GPS systems wouldn’t function, and banking access and other civilian applications would be blocked, as would satellite networks crucial to U.S. military personnel stationed around the world.

Some national security insiders fear Mr. Putin could take such a radical step if he faces certain defeat in Ukraine or otherwise feels boxed in by the West. Mr. Putin denied those accusations last week by saying Moscow remains “categorically opposed” to weapons in space.

The danger doesn’t end with Russia. Specialists warn that communist China also has an eye on anti-satellite weapons as part of a much broader strategic plan. Beijing could view a major EMP attack in space as a way to neutralize its enemies ahead of a full-scale land invasion of Taiwan, the island democracy it has vowed to take over one day.

“It is very difficult to set off an EMP that would only affect Taiwan and not affect China. But you could set something off over the central Pacific or North America that would mostly affect the United States,” said Dean Cheng, senior adviser to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

“And then there’s a military effect. What would happen to American military forces in Guam and elsewhere if they were exposed to an EMP attack?” Mr. Cheng said in an interview. “But, two, is the political effect. Would the threat of such a thing cause the United States to potentially not come to Taiwan’s aid? That is their bigger worry.”

Whether it’s Russia, China or any other actor, using such a doomsday weapon would send an unambiguous message: “We are prepared to crash global infrastructure, energy, finance, communications, shipping,” Mr. Cheng said.

Gauging the threat

ASAT weapons and the fear that Russia was considering a nuclear version were unexpectedly thrust into the public spotlight this month.

Michael Turner, Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, publicly called on the Biden administration to declassify and disseminate information about what he said was a major new Russian threat. His comments touched off several days of speculation. The White House eventually issued a statement expressing concern but insisting that U.S. intelligence analysts had identified no imminent threat to national security.

“Though Russia’s pursuit of this particular capability is troubling, there is no immediate threat to anyone’s safety,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. “We are not talking about a weapon that can be used to attack human beings or cause physical destruction here on Earth.”

Administration officials and some national security insiders were privately angry with Mr. Turner for making the matter public. Such sensitive intelligence issues are typically discussed only behind closed doors.

Mr. Turner said the House intelligence panel worked directly with the White House to notify Congress of the threat.

“The House Intelligence Committee voted 23 to 1 to make this information available to Members of Congress. White House officials confirmed that, in their view, the matter was ‘serious,’” Mr. Turner said on social media after other lawmakers criticized his public comments.

The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence agencies were divided and unsure about what the Russians were planning. In briefings with allies, U.S. officials expected any space-based nuclear weapon would be launched by the end of the year, but Russia may be planning to put a fake weapon into orbit to confuse Western monitors.

The intelligence assessments were issued with “low confidence,” according to the newspaper.

Moscow has been making advances on the ASAT front for years. In 2021, Russia conducted a “hit-to-kill” anti-ASAT test that destroyed one of its own satellites. The Pentagon said the test smashed the satellite into “more than 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris.”

“The debris created by Russia’s [test] will continue to pose a threat to activities in outer space for years to come, putting satellites and space missions at risk, as well as forcing more collision-avoidance maneuvers,” U.S. Army Gen. James H. Dickinson, commander of U.S. Space Command, said immediately after the test. “Space activities underpin our way of life, and this kind of behavior is simply irresponsible.”

Faced with new accusations, Mr. Putin denied that his country would place nuclear weapons in space.

“Our position is quite clear and transparent: We have always been and remain categorically opposed to the deployment of nuclear weapons in space,” Mr. Putin said on Tuesday, according to the official Tass news agency. “Just the opposite, we are urging everyone to adhere to all the agreements that exist in this sphere.”

Mr. Putin said Russia has developed only space capabilities that “other nations, including the U.S. have.”

“And they know it,” he said.

Game-changers in space

Those denials will do little to calm fears in the White House and the Pentagon. The introduction of a nuclear weapon into space, analysts say, would be a game-changer.

“A kinetic attack from Earth on any single small satellite would be highly inefficient. But a nuclear attack presents a wider problem,” said Clementine Starling and Mark J. Massa, researchers with the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank.

“A nuclear detonation in space would add significant radiation to orbits used by a number of U.S. military satellites, causing them to degrade in the weeks and months following the detonation unless they are specifically hardened against radiation,” they wrote in a recent analysis. “A so-called high-altitude nuclear detonation against low-Earth orbit satellites (HALEOS) would also damage thousands of civilian satellites from all nations, making this a true weapon of mass destruction.”

For Russia, such a step would mark the repudiation of numerous treaties with the U.S. dating back to the early years of the Cold War. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty explicitly says that “states shall not 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.”

Brushing aside that treaty and the host of others that prohibit weapons in space could lead to an immediate loss of whatever trust is left between the Kremlin and the Biden administration.

“The big point here is, if you start doing this, I have to assume that any satellite you put into space of a sufficiently large dimension might carry nuclear weapons on board,” Mr. Cheng said. “That puts everybody on a hair trigger.”

Mr. Cheng pointed to other Russian and Chinese space capabilities. In the summer of 2021, China launched into space a hypersonic missile capable of carrying a nuclear payload that circled the Earth several times. The test caught Pentagon leaders by surprise.

“What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system, and it is very concerning. I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that,” said then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, referring to the Soviet Union’s historic 1957 satellite launch that sparked a space race between Moscow and Washington.