The Biden Administration, with connivance from House Republicans, is engaging in scare stories, again, about Russian nuclear weapons in space. Yesterday, John Plumb, Assistant Defense Secretary for Space Policy, told the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee that the detonation of a Russian nuclear space weapon could render low-Earth orbit unusable for a year. “Several analysts do believe that detonation in space at the right magnitude in the right location could render low-Earth orbit, for example, unusable for some period of time,” he said, reported Defense One.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), who in February tweeted about a “destabilizing foreign military capability”—which in turn led to reports about Russia fielding a space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapon—wanted to know how long the weapon would leave low-Earth orbit unusable. “Could it be a year?” asked Turner. “I believe it could be,” Plumb said. Turner is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and it was he who started the narrative that Russia was planning to place a nuclear weapon of some sort into orbit, a claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin denied.
