A top Republican in the House is warning that an alleged Russian space weapon may imperil the U.S. military and economy if nothing is done about it.
Last week, the head of the House Intelligence Committee released a statement calling on the Biden administration to declassify intelligence about a serious military matter, saying members “identified an urgent matter with regard to a destabilizing foreign military capability that should be known by all congressional policymakers.” The move drew some criticism from fellow Republicans, accusing committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) of hyping up the threat to get a Ukraine aid bill passed.
In an interview on Feb. 18, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), a member of the powerful House Intelligence Committee, said it is a “weapon of mass destruction” because it can target satellites.
“If this weapon is allowed to fully deploy, it could completely blind our economy. It would take out our GPS,” he told Fox Business. “It could blind our military. It is incredibly serious. It’s a weapon of mass destruction, not just us ... countries all over the world.”
Last week, the White House said that Russia had been working on anti-satellite space weapons but said they haven’t been used or even deployed yet. Officials also criticized Mr. Turner for making a public statement about allegedly sensitive intelligence.
In his defense, Mr. Waltz told Fox that the chairman was “very frustrated after sending multiple classified letters to the administration” asking what is being done to stop the potential threat. The Intelligence Committee’s Republicans and Democrats, he added, got “radio silence” from the administration instead.
“So the committee voted unanimously, Republican and Democrat, to say, you know what, all members need to be aware,” he said. “This threat is so serious, so grave, all members need to be aware.”
Despite the criticism, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and Jake Sullivan, the White House’s national security adviser, were on the Hill the next day providing a strategy and describing what they’re going to do about it, he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “has calculated we are far more dependent on space than he is, so that perhaps this would be at his advantage or that he could use it as a serious deterrence to keep us from doing what we need to do,” he added.
Responding to the desire of some members of Congress to pass a Ukraine aid bill, Mr. Turner said: “It had nothing to do with Ukraine ... without getting into details, there was some new information that confirmed some things that we had suspected.”
No Active Capability
Reacting to the warning, Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared to stress that Russia doesn’t have the active ability to use such weapons. “This is not an active capability, but it is a potential one that we’re taking very, very seriously,” he said during an event in Albania last week. “And I would expect that we'll have more to say soon, in fact very soon, so stay tuned for that.”Russia and the United States are the largest nuclear powers, together holding about 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. They also both have advanced military satellites orbiting the Earth.
Outside the United States, the chief of Germany’s space force, Maj. Gen. Michael Traut, said that Russian space weapons, potentially nuclear weapons, could destroy what he referred to as a “global commons.”
“If somebody dares to explode a nuclear weapon in high atmosphere or even space, this would be more or less the end of the usability of that global commons [of orbit],” Mr. Traut said on Feb. 16, Politico reported, describing the devastating effects of a nuclear blast in space.
“Nobody would survive an action like that ... no satellite, either Chinese or Russian, and American or European,” he said, adding that no rational actor would employ such a weapon in space.
The Kremlin last week pushed back on the claims regarding the alleged space weapon, with its chief spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, telling reporters that such allegations are false. Another official, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Moscow’s point man on arms control, said U.S. officials have made a “malicious fabrication,” state media outlet TASS reported.
“It is obvious that the White House is trying, by hook or by crook, to encourage Congress to vote on a bill to allocate money, this is obvious,” Mr. Peskov told reporters. “We'll see what tricks the White House will use.”
