Turner Doubles Down on Russian Nuclear ASAT Threat

In a blistering speech, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee criticized the Biden Administration’s refusal to declassify more information about Russia’s plans to place a nuclear weapon in orbit. Calling the moment such a satellite is placed in orbit “Day Zero” and the end of the Space Age because no one could ever again count on their satellites functioning, Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) insisted Biden do more to ensure that Russia abides by the 1967 U.N. Outer Space Treaty that bans nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction from orbit.

“The Space Age began when Russia launched Sputnik in 1957. The eyes of the world turned to the sky and wondered how space and technology would now change life on Earth. The Space Age will end when Russia launches its nuclear antisatellite weapon into orbit,” Turner began in remarks to the Center for Strategic and International Studies yesterday.

Turner chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and to the dismay of the White House in February publicly revealed the existence of intelligence suggesting that Russia is building a nuclear ASAT.

The Biden Administration subsequently released a minimal amount of information accusing Russia of launching a satellite two years ago that is a prelude to a nuclear-equipped satellite that, if detonated, could destroy the vast majority of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Detonating a nuclear weapon in space would create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that would damage everyone’s satellites, including Russia’s, unless they are specially hardened. The effects of exploding a nuclear weapon in space were clearly demonstrated in 1962 when the United States conducted a high-altitude nuclear test called Starfish Prime. The resulting EMP was much larger than expected, not only disabling six satellites, but it “darkened streetlights over 1,400 km away in Hawaii and created artificial auroras.” The test led to the 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Although the White House is reluctant to divulge details about what it knows about Russia’s current nuclear ASAT intentions, it has stepped up international pressure on Russia to renounce the idea.

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly asserted that Russia has no plans to put nuclear weapons in orbit, on April 24 Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution reaffirming the prohibition on placing nuclear weapons in orbit in Article IV of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. The U.S. contends that if Putin really did not have such plans, Russia would not have vetoed the resolution. The vote was 13 in favor, one against (Russia) and one abstention (China).

U.S. officials including U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability Mallory Stewart, U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood, and then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb have made additional public statements calling out Russia for its actions, but all together remains only a trickle of information. What’s emerged from those statements and media reports is that Russia launched a satellite about two years ago that the U.S. views as a precursor to a nuclear ASAT, but has not yet launched a satellite with a nuclear weapon onboard. Thus the U.S. government is concerned, but there is no actual threat at this moment.

Turner doesn’t want to wait. He wants concrete action from President Biden.

Quoting U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, Turner warned that the day Russia launches a nuclear weapon into orbit would be “Day Zero” for the world.

“General Saltzman, Chief of [Space Operations] of the United States Space Force, has referred to the potential launch date of Russia’s nuclear antisatellite weapon as Day Zero because from that day no one can count on space the next day.

“From that day forward, the assumption on Earth must be in order to preserve our economic, social and military structures, that we must have an alternative to space. Right now there isn’t one. Trillions and trillions of dollars and time we don’t have will be required to build duplicative and redundant systems just to preserve what we have accomplished in the Space Age. For some things, no alternative exists.”

Turner views the current situation as analogous to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban President Fidel Castro agreed to install Soviet nuclear missile in Cuba. U.S. President John F. Kennedy ordered the U.S. Navy to form a blockade to prevent the ships carrying the missiles from reaching port. It was one of the highest-stake crises of the Cold War that ended when Khrushchev withdrew his ships and the U.S. agreed not to attack Cuba again as it had done a year earlier (the failed Bay of Pigs invasion) lest the world descend into “the catastrophe of thermonuclear war” as Khrushchev wrote to Kennedy.

A nuclear detonation in LEO also would create devastating consequences, Turner stressed, and Putin knows it.

“Day Zero can be avoided. Imagine how different the world would have been if President Kennedy had allowed Khrushchev to place nuclear weapons in Cuba. … Just as Khrushchev could have held the United States hostage with nuclear threats from Cuba, Vladimir Putin will hold the world’s space assets hostage to counter attempts to stop him from reassembling the Soviet Union.”

What’s needed in Turner’s view is for the Biden Administration to negotiate a nuclear weapons control treaty, as has been done in the past, “but such treaties are negotiated through strength, something the Biden Administration seems incapable of showing.”

The Biden Administration “must immediately declassify all known information concerning the status of Russia’s nuclear antisatellite weapons program.” Putin “thrives in secrecy” and his plans “must be fully disclosed by the Administration and understood by the world.”

Turner also wants the United States and its NATO allies to join together and “declare their resolve to enforce the U.N. Outer Space Treaty.” He didn’t specify what form that would take, but again criticized the Biden Administration for its unwillingness “to take any action that would appear escalatory” even though “Russia is the escalatory aggressor” and “escalation has already occurred.”