Russia isn’t likely to put nuclear missiles in space, but their reported anti-satellite weapon is just as alarming. An expert on nuclear strategy explains.
Fresh U.S. intelligence circulating in Congress reportedly indicates that Russia is developing an anti-satellite weapon in space with a nuclear component.
As a scholar of nuclear strategy, I know the U.S. reports come at a time when the nuclear world order is shifting significantly. China and others are expanding and modernizing their arsenals. Iran is close to being able to produce a nuclear weapon. Other countries may eventually want their own nuclear weapons.
Neither country placed nuclear weapons in space permanently. Both were parties to the Outer Space Treaty and the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, which outlawed nuclear detonations in space. Moscow and Washington negotiated these treaties to contain the Cold War arms race. Countries could point space-based weapons toward other regions of space, like the Russian weapon under development. This conjures images of nuclear weapons striking asteroids to defend Earth from a collision.
Nuclear weapons damage satellites because of a wave of gamma radiation that is created by a nuclear detonation. This radiation damages critical subsystems within a satellite. Many of the satellites a country may want to take out are located at higher orbits beyond the range of ground-based systems. This is true for some of the U.S. systems that Russia may want to target.
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