OPINION:
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Russia plans to orbit nuclear-armed satellites with the intent of destroying hundreds of U.S. satellites in time of war.
The only reason we know this is that on Feb. 14, Rep. Mike Turner, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said that the United States faces a “serious national security threat” and urged President Biden to declassify all information related to it so that Congress and the public can debate what needs to be done about it.
The next day, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed the threat of a Russian plan to orbit nuclear weapons capable of destroying our satellites. Mr. Kirby said: “This is not an active capability that’s been deployed. … And though Russia’s pursuit of this particular capability is troubling, there was no immediate threat to anyone’s safety.”
With all due respect to Mr. Kirby, any threat to our constellations of satellites threatens every American and every U.S. ally. Our military and intelligence agencies are almost totally dependent on them. Satellites give us the ability to communicate securely, navigate, target precision weapons, and provide most of our ability to gather intelligence. They also give us early warning of missile launches.
As much as Mr. Kirby may want to downplay the threat, Russia’s development of a space-based nuclear capability that could soon pose a threat to U.S. satellites imposes changes on our strategies — both nuclear and tactical — that we cannot ignore.
Were Russia to orbit one or more nuclear weapons, it would constitute a violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits nations from placing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on other celestial bodies such as the moon or other planets.
The strategic significance of Russian orbiting nuclear weapons is enormous. Disabling many of our defense and intelligence satellites would throw us back to the 1960s, when we weren’t quite deaf, dumb and blind, but close to it. After killing our satellites, Russian forces would be able to attack NATO countries without warning.
Our satellites are defenseless. Moreover, our anti-satellite capability is almost nonexistent. Time after time, either Congress, a president or the Pentagon has killed programs that would have provided that capability. It would take at least a decade to protect our satellites with their own defensive systems and our own anti-satellite weapons. Even providing those defenses would be no absolute guarantee against a massive loss of our satellites in the event of a Russian attack.
Russia’s development and intent to deploy orbiting nuclear weapons is consistent with other Russian actions. They have withdrawn from and violated several major arms control treaties in the past few years alone.
We withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 after it became clear that Russia was violating it by putting nuclear-armed missiles closer to Europe than the treaty allowed. The Russians withdrew shortly thereafter.
After it invaded Ukraine, Russia withdrew from the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty in 2023, which would have limited their forces threatening NATO and Eastern Europe.
Russia also withdrew from two other major treaties in 2023, proving its renewed focus on nuclear weapons.
Russia withdrew from the New START treaty in February 2023. That treaty limited the number and types of nuclear weapons that the U.S. and Russia could have. Late that year, Russia withdrew from the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited nuclear testing on Earth.
Russian President Vladimir Putin may have abandoned nuclear diplomacy because our deterrence strategy is no longer credible. By developing and deploying such satellites in secret, he is seeking to gain a strategic advantage over us and our allies without any diplomacy behind it.
The United States is too deeply immersed in our quadrennial election solipsism to pay enough attention to this vital national security issue. Nevertheless, it must be a new focus of the president, the Pentagon and our intelligence agencies.
Mr. Biden should make the creation and deployment of an effective anti-satellite capability a Pentagon top priority. Moreover, he should make a major speech warning Mr. Putin and our other adversaries that any threat will be dealt with decisively. But he won’t, because it would take a president who is more concerned with U.S. defense than with bashing Israel at the U.N.
Mr. Biden’s weakness has greatly reduced the credibility of our deterrence strategy. His promises to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack have been declared insincere by his own Cabinet. He failed to deter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and our NATO allies watch as Congress fails to give that nation the aid it needs. Mr. Biden seems content to ignore the fact that Iran is ever closer to obtaining nuclear weapons.
We have to be as serious about deterrence as Russia, China and Iran are about aggression. Deterrence means threatening our adversaries with unacceptable consequences for any major aggression and the willingness to carry out the threat. We are now unable to deter Russia from orbiting nuclear-armed satellites that can destroy our slim military and intelligence advantages.
There must be a restoration of the will to use force to make our deterrence credible again. Unless we do, we face a bleak future.
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and contributing editor for The American Spectator.
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