The House Intelligence Committee Chair asked Biden to declassify intel on reported nuclear anti-satellite weapon
House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) called on President Joe Biden to declassify all intelligence reports related to an unnamed “serious national security threat” on Wednesday, as reported by ABC News. Jake Sullivan, White House national security adviser, addressed the remarks in a press briefing, assured reporters the country faced no imminent threat of attack, and confirmed that he reached out to congressional leaders. Sullivan offered no further details of the supposed threat.
According to ABC News, two sources familiar with deliberations on Capitol Hill told the outlet that the classified intelligence involved Russian ambitions to put a nuclear weapon into space — not to drop a nuclear weapon onto Earth, but rather to possibly use against satellites. “It is very concerning and very sensitive,” one source reportedly told the outlet, calling it “a big deal.”
“Current and former officials said the nuclear weapon was not in orbit,” The New York Times reported, confirming ABC News’ report. Turner’s warning comes ahead of a previously planned Thursday meeting on the topic between congressional leaders and Biden’s top security advisers which Turner is scheduled to attend. Sullivan said he “was a bit surprised that Congressman Turner came out today.”
Outer Space Treaty
Article IV
States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner.
https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/isn/5181.htm
Russia ratified this when they were still the USSR. I would not at all be surprised if Putin argues that means they are no longer a signatory.
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They already said that the agreement to never invade Ukraine in exchange for all Ukraine’s nukes was not valid because the USSR, not Russia, made the deal.
They’re pretty comfortable playing both sides of the argument
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Russia ratified this when they were still the USSR. I would not at all be surprised if Putin argues that means they are no longer a signatory.
Fine, then they no longer get the other perks of being the heir to the USSR, like a UN veto.
Ooo I like your style!
If Russia cannot be considered a signatory of treaties that the USSR signed and ratified, then it also follows that Russia cannot simply take over the USSR’s permanent UNSC seat.
You gotta pick one, Putin.
Any nukes in space would be horrendously bad
Hopefully the number up there remains zero
So much for the “highly sensitive” source of this information. Republicans just let Putin know that we’re onto him
They’re putting it in space because that’s the only place the crews can’t steal components off the missiles to sell for vodka
After launch, sure.
But what about before launch?
My boss is one of those “Ultra MAGA” people. He likes to make audacious, obviously bullshit claims that he heard from dubious sources. Anyway, today’s whopper was that “Ukraine is the second most corrupt country in the world.”
I asked him which was number one and he couldn’t come up with an answer, but a very brief Google search brought up two sources total for the phrase “Ukraine second most corrupt.”
The first was NorwayNews and the other was Freedom. Win. I mentioned that one of those sites was known propaganda and full of Nazis. He got all up in his feelings and has been big mad at me all morning.
My point is, Putin is collecting dividends on his purchase of the Republican party by way of the NRA. These useful idiots are destroying the country from within and people like my boss are aiding and abetting.
I saw this movie.
spoiler
Tommy Lee Jones ends up riding the nuke to the moon.
Wait, I thought Arecibo drops on Sean Bean? RIP Arecibo
What movie? That sounds dope.
Ahh yeah. I like how Sutherland gets through the eye test and says something like “my sight may be shit, but my memory is great.”
Donald Sutherland was probably the best part of that movie. After he couldn’t be an astronaut he became a roller coaster tester. I’ve spent 24 years looking for career opportunities in the roller coaster testing.
Is a satellite that is powered by nuclear energy that can shoot a laser at another satellite still a nuclear weapon?
Sounds like somebody wants to get defense money for contractor buddies while simultaneously putting pressure on Biden. Russia can hardly put people in space now. How are they going to pursue nukes?
there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of here putting nukes in space is dumb as fuck
Which is exactly why Putin would do it. That, and to take out Starlink and DoD spy sats.
They don’t need nukes to do that and it would potentially kill people in space because there is no atmosphere to stop the radiation from travelling. Also they can hit anywhere in the world already there is no need to put nukes in space. It’s all fearmongering.
Sooo…
Apparently congressman Turner came out today.
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KE payloads are probably the most useful. Scatter lead shot and let Kessler take over. Explosives are quite a bit weaker, though explosively formed projectiles might be useful- or something like a claymore spraying shrapnel.
In any case, they may be intending to detonate a nuke in orbit for the EMP effect. It would probably knock out everything that’s not military (like Starlink.), in an area much larger than what conventional weapons would do.
Nuking orbit like that would piss off a lot of people; including NATO. (And presumably China.)
Unless you want to take out a whole bunch of them. Swarm of nanosats with some kind of miniexplosives or even just one-use engines to force deorbiting would probably still be more efficient, unless…
Unless you want to go for geostationary. A real crowd of satellitrs which have a feature of always looking at the same part of the Earth. While it would be very easy to send a boom device to low earth orbit (also very crowded), erasing a bunch of satellites there would be a temporary inconvenience (let’s not talk about Kessler) since a lot of what’s important is either a global constellation (starlink, gps) or has redundancies (earth observation comes to mind). But explode a nuke in the geostationary over the US and suddenly America has no sat TV/radio, no weather sat coverage and it’s harder to patch up than “just” replacing missing nodes of a constellation.
I think they’d need to send something bigger than tsar bomba up there to do that, wouldn’t even a nuclear explosive lack it’s terran scale in space without the enhancing effects of an atmosphere? Edit: ohhhh nevermind, EMP.
Also that would certainly be a MAD event where we’d be forced to retaliate on a nuclear scale?
