The White House confirmed on Tuesday reports of Russia\u2019s development of an anti-satellite weapon capability, describing it as a serious concern but insisting that the weapon is not yet operational and does not pose an immediate danger.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe administration did not give a green light for this information to get public yesterday,\u201d said President\u2019s national security communications adviser John Kirby at a White House news conference. \u201cWe were eventually going to get to a point where we were going to be able to share it with the American people. But this is not an imminent threat. It\u2019s not an active capability that is yet deployed.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kirby emphasized that while the intelligence community has \u201cserious concerns,\u201d full declassification of details at this stage was not advisable due to concerns about protecting sources and methods.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
However, following Turner\u2019s remarks, the news outlets began extensively reporting on the alleged Russian anti-satellite weapon, which prompted the White House to confirm the intelligence.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kirby reiterated that the weapon is still in development and not an imminent threat. He declined to comment on whether the weapon is nuclear-powered, as some reports have suggested.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile Russia\u2019s pursuit of this particular capability is troubling, there is no immediate threat to anyone\u2019s safety,\u201d Kirby said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some analysts have suggested that Turner\u2019s disclosure was aimed at pressuring congressional Republicans to support military aid for Ukraine. Defense analyst Todd Harrison highlighted the importance of maintaining support for Ukraine amidst growing tensions with Russia.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Harrison also cautioned against undue alarm over reports characterizing the threat as a \u201cnuclear weapon in space,\u201d clarifying that a nuclear-powered satellite carrying a non-nuclear anti-satellite weapon is more likely scenario.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Peter Garretson, a defense consultant and senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, echoed Harrison\u2019s sentiments, stating that a nuclear-powered space weapon is more credible than an actual nuclear weapon in space.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Garretson emphasized Russia\u2019s interest in electronic warfare and nuclear electric power, suggesting that a nuclear-powered electronic weapon would align with their technological capabilities.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Photo: @WhiteHouse<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The White House confirmed on Tuesday reports of Russia\u2019s development of an anti-satellite weapon capability, describing it as a serious concern but insisting that the weapon is not yet operational and does not pose an immediate danger. \u201cThe administration did not give a green light for this information to get public yesterday,\u201d said President\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}