A week after Congressional Chicken Little-impersonators and major media journalist-impersonators launched a panic over a “Russian nuclear weapon in space,” and the panic then lost steam, administration intelligence or military figures are apparently trying to relaunch it. It was re-imagined for Bloomberg News Feb. 20 by the customary “people familiar.”
“The U.S. has told allies that Russia could deploy a nuclear weapon or a mock warhead into space as early as this year, according to people familiar with the matter,” wrote a team of three Bloomberg News authors. A nuclear “mock warhead” could be a useful follow-up claim for the “people familiar with the matter.”
The account of these people got really foolish. “The effects wouldn’t necessarily mean the destruction of satellites but could mean disruptions that require error corrections,” it averred. That must have referred just to the mock warhead exploding, because later, “damage from a nuclear weapon exploding in low-earth [sic] orbit could fry satellites for hundreds of miles and the resulting radiation could [harm] satellites … for months.”
Then more foolishness. “Russia has repeatedly resorted to nuclear saber-rattling as its forces are faltering [sic] since invading Ukraine.” President Putin has categorically denied any plan or potential for nuclear weapons in space, and his statement of Feb. 20 is even briefly cited. It is only the “people familiar” who are rattling this saber.
The same administration people were leaking to Politico Feb. 20 the story that they withheld intelligence from the public regarding Russia’s alleged nuclear space weapon because the administration was trying for talks to convince Russia to back off the program. Senior intelligence and administration officials had ostensibly been reaching out to Russia—along with India and China as possible intermediaries —for weeks, “according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the outreach.” The officials declined to tell Politico whether Russia had responded before the Congressional chickens flew, but said that since Rep. Mike Turner’s public fit, Russia has not shown any willingness to engage on the issue. Now, U.S. officials are increasingly concerned Russia will move forward with testing “its space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapon.”
Their concern, by this report, is Russian tests of “a space-based anti-satellite weapon with nuclear capabilities.” And if Russia were to succeed in its launch, “it would demonstrate that it may have the ability” to detonate a nuclear weapon in space, against satellites.
So, since Russia has a space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapon, if it conducts tests, it could demonstrate that it may have the ability to have a space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapon.
This reminds one of old wisecracks of the type, “If my grandmother had wings, she could fly, if she was a bird.” But the people familiar with the matter are serious about the all-out hybrid war they are waging against Russia. The final sentence from the Bloomberg feature states something likely true: The administration “people familiar” want this propaganda claim to be on the agenda of the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Capri, Italy over April 17-19.
