What We Know About Russia’s Nuclear Space Weapon

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep! Jack is manning the fort today, with Robbie still on the road in India for the Raisina Dialogue after a hectic few days at the Munich Security Conference.

Here’s what’s on tap for the day: Russia’s new nuclear space weapon concerns Washington, NATO gets closer to picking its next leader, and Congress’s funding fight takes the steam out of the Pentagon’s arms production buildup.

Weaponizing Space

It started—as it often does—with a post on social media. Last week, U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner posted a brief statement on X, formerly Twitter, saying that his panel had “information concerning a serious national security threat” and calling on U.S. President Joe Biden to “declassify all information relating to” the unspecified threat.

The vague but concerning missive sent Washington into a frenzy. First, a few perceptive reporters were able to figure out that the threat Turner was talking about was Russian; subsequent reports suggested that it had to do with intelligence showing that Russia may be planning to put a nuclear weapon in space, potentially to target satellites.

Russia hasn’t shot anything new into space—yet. But SitRep took a look into what the weapon could be and why it’s causing such a fuss.

What we know. A week after the ruckus, U.S. spy agencies are privately warning European allies that Russia indeed likely plans to launch something into space, but it could be a nuclear weapon or a dummy warhead. And there are still a lot of disagreements within the 18-agency U.S. intelligence community about what the Russian capability actually is and what Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans are.

What seems clear enough, so far, is that Russia isn’t building the equivalent of land-based tactical or strategic nuclear weapons in space that could lay waste to large military units or major Western cities. CNN reports that the space-based nuke would instead send out massive energy waves that could knock out commercial and government satellites, like an electromagnetic pulse weapon.

Even for Russia, launching a space weapon into orbit would be a major policy reversal. Officials in Moscow have long shown a reluctance to step out of line with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits weaponizing space. Indeed, on Tuesday, Putin specifically cited the treaty, saying that Russia respects it and has always been “categorically against” putting nuclear weapons in space.

Yet even the possibility of Moscow taking such a step is enough to worry U.S. and European officials.

How dangerous would this be? The United States and its allies depend heavily on a constellation of space-borne command and control satellites for critical military communications as well as intelligence gathering and targeting. Perhaps most crucially, if a conventional war turns nuclear, satellites are important to ensure that the White House and the Defense Department know where the United States’ 5,244 nuclear warheads are and that they’re tamper-proof. It’s so important that the Pentagon is hoping to spend $8 billion to stiffen that architecture.

But it’s not just a military issue. Commercial satellites would also be vulnerable to such a weapon. Any way you look at it, however, a nuclear explosion in space would have major ripple effects that could completely change our way of life back here on Earth.

“A nuclear explosion in space would create a series of devastating effects, including an electromagnetic pulse, and longer-lasting radiation that would circle the earth and dramatically compromise satellite communications world-wide,” Jon Wolfsthal, the director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists and a former senior director for arms control on the U.S. National Security Council, wrote on Wednesday. “Some hardened assets might survive, but other unshielded military and almost all non-shielded commercial satellites would be potentially vulnerable. The global economic and communications system could be shut down or destroyed for years, and some orbits made hazardous—if not unusable—for an extended period due to space debris.”

In other words, you would probably have to say goodbye to that internet connection you’re using and that smartphone you’re looking at right now.

Can we just talk? Turner’s statement not only forced intelligence on Russian capabilities out into the open, but it also reignited concern about the current state of arms control talks between the White House and the Kremlin.

Behind closed doors, the Biden administration has reportedly been working to try to convince Russia not to test the weapon and to cease the program. But the arms control regime between Washington and Moscow that was put in place during the Cold War has significantly weakened over the last several years. The only nuclear treaty remaining between the two nations is the Obama-era New START, which caps the number of deployed missiles, warheads, and both deployed and nondeployed launchers, including heavy bombers. That treaty expires in two years.

Talks to establish a successor to New START were underway when Russia invaded Ukraine, bringing them to a halt. And Russia is still insisting that it won’t engage with the United States on arms control while the Biden administration is providing military support to Ukraine. On Tuesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu even alleged that the entire brouhaha over Moscow’s nuclear space plans was partly an attempt by the West “to push us so clumsily into restarting a dialogue on strategic stability”—a reference to the New START successor talks.

In the meantime, the Biden administration has reportedly reached out to both China and India, encouraging them to use their influence to convince Moscow not to deploy a space weapon.

On the Button

What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.

Shoo-in? NATO leaders are consolidating around Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to be the alliance’s next secretary-general, with Britain now joining the United States in backing the outgoing Dutch leader. Since NATO operates on unanimity, Rutte needs the backing of all 31 allies—and Sweden if Hungary votes it into the alliance next week—to be declared the next secretary-general. Rutte, who is the only declared candidate in the race despite interest from others, including Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, still has to get through flak from the Baltic nations over the Netherlands’ inability to meet NATO’s defense spending target of 2 percent of GDP during his time as prime minister.

The race isn’t over yet, though. Bloomberg reported on Thursday that Romania was launching a last-minute bid to nominate its president, Klaus Iohannis, for NATO’s top job. This could be interesting.

Life finds a way. Western efforts have not succeeded in stemming the flow of advanced U.S.- and European-made electronics and machinery to Russia to support the Kremlin’s war effort in Ukraine, our colleague Amy Mackinnon reports. That’s despite the United States and its allies slapping hundreds of sanctions and export controls on Moscow since the invasion began two years ago. Russia has been able to get around Western export controls by going through third countries, such as Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and a handful of former Soviet states. And the Biden administration has held off on enforcing its harshest rules on China, even as competition picks up between Washington and Beijing.

“Life finds a way,” a senior U.S. intelligence official told Amy, quoting the movie Jurassic Park.

Breaking point. The U.S. Defense Department is concerned that Congress’s failure to pass the $95 billion national security supplemental, which has been stalled for more than four months, could have a significant impact on efforts to expand the defense industrial base to produce more bombs, rockets, and bullets. In a statement released on Wednesday, the Pentagon confirmed that the U.S. Army is building three 155 mm artillery projectile metal parts lines in Texas, which are expected to produce 30,000 shell bodies per month by the end of 2025.

But it said that further investments like that might be limited without more spending by Congress. “Without additional supplemental funding or appropriations, the Department is unable to make further, critical investments of this type in our Defense Industrial Base,” Jeff Jurgensen, a Pentagon spokesperson, said in an email.

Snapshot

Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov (left) and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte speak as they meet in The Hague on Feb. 8. Remko de Waal/ANP/AFP

Put On Your Radar

Friday, Feb. 23: Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson is set to visit Hungary in an effort to get Budapest to greenlight Sweden’s NATO bid.

Saturday, Feb. 24: G-7 leaders hold a virtual summit to mark the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Sunday, Feb. 25: Early voting begins in Russia’s presidential election, whose outcome is already predetermined thanks to Putin.

Belarus holds parliamentary elections. They are expected to be tightly monitored, and opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is calling for a boycott.

Israel’s report on provisional measures is due to the International Court of Justice at The Hague over South Africa’s accusations that Israel has committed genocide in its invasion of the Gaza Strip.

Monday, Feb. 26: The Hungarian parliament reconvenes after a multiweek break and is expected to vote on Sweden’s NATO accession.

Quote of the Week

“I actually, frankly, didn’t know there was such a thing as a Russian luxury car. I hope Kim got the extended warranty.”

—U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller responds to the report that Putin gifted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a luxury car.

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