Biden is 'sleepwalking' into nuclear arms race in space, Turner warns
The U.S. is 'sleepwalking' toward the next 'Cuban missile crisis,' top Intelligence Republican Mike Turner warned as he once again called on the Biden administration to declassify Russia's anti-satellite capabilities. Turner months ago raised alarm across the country when he issued an ominous and seemingly out-of-the-blue statement calling on Biden to declassify information related to a 'serious national security threat' - but wouldn't go into details.
It was later reported to relate to Moscow's plan to put a nuclear weapon into space to target and destroy satellites the world depends on. 'I believe the Biden administration is sleepwalking itself into an irreversible catastrophic situation with Russia,' Turner told DailyMail.com after a talk where he reignited the dire warning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS.)
'This is the Cuban Missile Crisis in space. And President Biden is not rising to the to the charge the way that President Kennedy did and impacted the outcome and changed history for the better.' Turner warned the world could go dark for as long as a year. Cell phone towers, internet, GPS, banking systems, power grids, first responders and military operations could all be impacted.
'This threat would mean that our economic, international security and social systems come to a grinding halt,' Turner warned. 'This would be a catastrophic and devastating attack upon western economic, and democratic systems. Vladimir Putin knows this — checkmate.' He referred to the day Putin would use his anti-satellite capability as 'day zero,' after which 'mankind would be unable to repopulate low earth orbit and man space exploration would be deadly.'
The US does not currently have defenses against such a threat, and if satellite-based communications were destroyed, getting them back online would require maneuvering remaining satellites into place and launching new ones on rockets - both of which days or weeks. Turner insisted public pressure would lead to more international sanctions that could force Russia to back off putting a nuclear weapon in space.
The talk came as Russia's Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un this week signed a mutual defense pact between the two nuclear-armed super powers. 'Putin's plans and weapons programs must be fully disclosed by the administration and understood by the world,' Turner said during the talk, accusing Biden of being 'incredibly reluctant to take any action that would appear escalatory.'
'This should not be permitted to go into orbit, period. and the administration does not even have it on their to-do list.' White House national security spokesman John Kirby said it was 'flat out wrong' to say the Biden administration wasn't taking the threat seriously. 'We have absolutely taken very seriously, we've been working this particular problem set from every possible angle, including through intense diplomacy with countries around the world,' Kirby said.
'We said at the time in February, when did this was made publicizing this highly sensitive intelligence was highly irresponsible,' he went on. 'Nevertheless, what I can say is we're going to continue our efforts to swayed Russia from putting a nuclear weapon into orbit.' The warning signs of such an attack are already there. In 2021, Russia demonstrated its capability to shoot down satellites with missiles launched from Earth, destroying one of its own decommissioned satellites. And in 2020 Russia fired a projectile from a satellite up into outer space - though Russian officials maintained the projectile was not a weapon.
The move to put a nuclear device in space would also go against the Outer Space Treaty, a 1967 agreement the then-USSR was party to. One provision of the treaty is a ban on orbiting nuclear weapons. In recent years, Russia may have violated another part of this treaty when it shot down its own 1980s-era Cosmos 1408 satellite in 2021. And earlier this year Moscow rejected Washington's efforts to negotiate a new START agreement for when the current one expires in 2026.
