Two top intelligence officials within the Department of Defense (DoD) said this week that Russia is “getting close” to having the ability to leverage nuclear weapons in space, potentially threatening the United States and its allies’ low earth orbit satellites.
Speaking on July 17 at the Aspen Security Summit in Colorado, Lt. Gen. Jeff Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), said that DoD has “been tracking for almost a decade Russia’s intent to design the ability to put nuclear weapons in space. They have progressed down to a point where we think they’re getting close.”
“If they were to detonate a nuclear weapon in space, it is not just going to affect military targets,” Kruse said. “The issue is everything that’s in line of sight at low earth orbit is going to have immediate effects.”
He continued, “[Russia] sees this as a potential pathway that they might want to pursue. The exposure of it will potentially change their path – I am not sure that we know that yet, and that is worth the dialogue going forward.”
Gen. Stephen Whiting, who heads U.S. Space Command, said it’s “disappointing” what Russia is doing because they are the original space superpower.
“The Soviet Union was the original signer of the Outer Space Treaty,” Whiting said. “It has been an expectation for mankind that we will not put a nuclear weapon or weapons of mass destruction in space, and now they’re doing that potentially.”
“And if that were to happen … it’s a completely indiscriminate weapon – it would affect United States satellites, Chinese satellites, Russian satellites, European satellites, Indian satellites, Japanese satellites, and so it’s really holding at risk the entire modern way of life,” he said. “It’s just an incredibly reckless decision. It is not the action of a responsible space actor. And we hope that Russia returns to its roots as a responsible space actor and living up to its treaty obligations.”
Satellites in low earth orbit are used for a variety of purposes for us down on earth, including communications; Global Positioning System (GPS) services; weather forecasting; defense; and observation.
Whiting explained how the Space Command is counteracting threats from Russia, including putting better capability on board the newest generations of GPS satellites to stop jamming efforts.
“We are constantly working to optimize our ability to respond to jamming, and to move users as needed,” Whiting said. “There’s always planning within the joint force about how do we respond, and it’s not always a space-based solution, it might be a ground-based solution.”
“It is, again, irresponsible when we read reports of Russian GPS jamming that’s affecting commercial aviation in Eastern Europe and we want Russia to be a responsible space actor and not do those kinds of actions,” he added.
