“Russia Plans To Put Nuclear Weapons in Orbit for ‘Space Pearl Harbor’” a headline in The Times of London declared on April 15. “Russia is planning a nuclear weapon in space to target satellites in an attack that would cause global mayhem, a U.S. military chief has warned,” it claims at the outset of a report on an interview with Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command. He claimed that the Russian plan is part of a pattern of increased Russian aggression in space since the start of the Ukraine war. That has included “sustained satellite communication and GPS jamming” which is so large-scale that it is “putting civilian airliners at risk.”
Whiting claimed that the Russians “are thinking about placing in orbit a nuclear anti-satellite weapon that would hold at risk everyone’s satellites in low Earth orbit, and that would be an outcome that we just couldn’t tolerate.”
Asked about Russia’s motivations for the project, he said: “From a Russian perspective, they look at the United States, they look at NATO and they see an overmatch there of conventional arms. And they believe that novel ways of trying to undermine the United States and NATO, such as by neutralising our space capabilities, helps them to level the battlefield.”
“A nuclear detonation at low orbit—defined as between 300 and 1,200 miles above Earth—could destroy and eventually degrade as many as 10,000 satellites, or 80% of the total in space,” The Times explains. “On top of the hammer blow to military intelligence and targeting, much of the world’s civilian satellite communications for internet and mobile phones as well as GPS services would also fail. It has been called ‘a space Pearl Harbor.’” Not mentioned is that such a detonation would also wipe out every Russian satellite within range.
