Why space nukes are freaking everyone out

How the next wave of technology is upending the global economy and its power structures

Jul 01, 2024 View in browser   By Matt Berg and Miles J. Herszenhorn A Northrop Grumman cargo ship about to be captured by the International Space Station’s robot arm Wednesday. | NASA/AP With help from Christine Mui It sounds like the plot of a doomsday novel: Washington’s adversaries detonate a nuke in space, killing thousands of satellites and kneecapping U.S. military capabilities. Communication blackouts spread around the world. Economies start to collapse, chaos ensues. Some call it the new Cuban Missile Crisis. U.S. officials say Moscow is developing an anti-satellite nuclear weapon in space, freaking out Washington and causing U.S. officials to use the United Nations and countries such as China and India to persuade Russia to back down from launching it into orbit. The Biden administration has stressed that there’s no immediate danger, but the prospect represents a very analog threat to the world’s digital future. Not much is known about the weapon, and the Biden administration hasn’t offered many details about it. House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio), who has been sounding alarms about the space nuke since (cryptically) unveiling the issue in February, said he’s “dissatisfied with the progress” the Biden administration has been making with those talks. The U.S. briefed all NATO members about the space nuke threat months ago, and it continues to be a regular topic of conversation among allies, a senior administration official granted anonymity to detail private conversations told DFD. The fact that there’s nuclear material in orbit isn’t what’s concerning people — it’s pretty normal for things in space to run on nuclear power. The alert level in Washington quickly changes, however, when it’s a weapon. Even a small weapon detonated in orbit could have a global effect very different from the use of a weapon on the ground. The U.S. has been ramping up its space capabilities, for military use and communication services, among other critical functions: Such a weapon could affect financial and consumer transactions, the commercial space industry and military assets in orbit. The Pentagon now depends on the new frontier for its day-to-day operations, said Tory Bruno, CEO of aerospace giant United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Think GPS systems, targeting and communication with troops. Last month, a top DOD official warned that the detonation of a Russian nuke in low Earth orbit — where the majority of satellites are, as well as the International Space Station — could make the area unusable for a year due to radiation and potential debris flying at high speeds. Sure, it would also knock out Russia’s and its friends’ capabilities too. But Moscow might see the move as a way to level the playing field on Earth, Bruno told DFD. “That's why we would think that's destabilizing — because it would be potentially an opener to a conventional conflict on Earth,” Bruno added, specifically noting the potential for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan suddenly becoming easier if America lost its military eyes in the sky. Of course, this idea is not totally new — and (maybe not surprisingly) the U.S. government tried it decades ago. In 1962, Operation Starfish Prime saw the U.S. launch a thermonuclear warhead on a Thor missile and detonate it in orbit. That explosion disabled only a few satellites. Depending on the size of a warhead today, a nuclear detonation could kill hundreds or thousands of satellites. Russia’s space nuke is the latest development Washington is concerned about. Space treaties now seem to be dividing along political lines on earth: Moscow and Beijing have their own agreement, which involves building a research station on the moon — counterting the Artemis Accords, the U.S.-led international agreement to create a set of norms for space exploration. With increasing dangers to satellites and other assets in orbit, as well as China advancing on moon exploration, Washington’s dominance in orbit is being threatened. “This second space race is far more consequential than the first,” Peter Garretson, a senior fellow in defense studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, told DFD. “The stakes are not just prestige — we are playing for the largest resource trove in human history and the entire economic future of humanity.”   THE GOLD STANDARD OF DEFENSE POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. 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Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY.     THE SUPREME COURT’S BIG TECH MOMENT Can the government tell tech platforms what they have to post? Well… that’s still TBD. The Supreme Court, in its very last day of opinions this term, punted two state laws attempting to regulate social-media companies back to lower courts Monday. POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein, Rebecca Kern and Brendan Bordelon reported today that the cases — Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton — stem from laws in Florida and Texas that seek to prevent social media platforms such as Facebook and X from removing content and blocking political candidates based on their viewpoints. The laws were passed in the wake of several platforms banning Donald Trump after Jan. 6, 2021, for violating their policies on inciting violence. Tech groups NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Information Association sued to block the laws on First Amendment grounds, and a Florida appellate court upheld an injunction against that state’s law, while a Texas appeals court struck down a lower court injunction. The justices declined to rule with finality on whether the state laws violated the Constitution. Rather, in sending the cases back to the lower courts, the justices called for a more thorough examination of the full scope of First Amendment questions that the cases raised. The ruling was a complex one, technically a unanimous judgment overturning the lower court decisions, but with multiple concurring opinions that evinced significant disagreement among the justices. Tech groups applauded the opinion. Attorneys general in Florida and Texas pledged to keep fighting for their states’ laws. EU’S SECOND BITE AT THE APPLE The European Commission has charged a second company under its new digital competition rules designed to rein in Big Tech: Meta. Regulators objected to how the parent company of Facebook and Instagram asks users to pay a subscription fee or allow their data to be used for targeted advertising — a model that the commission says is forcing them into a “binary choice,” POLITICO’s Edith Hancock reported today. “Our preliminary view is that Meta’s advertising model fails to comply with the Digital Markets Act,” Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Monday, adding that the regulator wants “to empower citizens to be able to take control over their own data and choose a less personalised ads experience.” A Meta spokesperson pushed back and said the service it rolled out last year follows a ruling from Europe’s highest court. Companies could face fines as high as 10 percent of their global revenues if officials think they are breaking the DMA. Last week, Apple became the first company accused of being in breach over its app store practices.   SUBSCRIBE TO GLOBAL PLAYBOOK: Don’t miss out on POLITICO’s Global Playbook, our newsletter taking you inside pivotal discussions at the most influential gatherings in the world. Suzanne Lynch delivers the world's elite and influential moments directly to you. Stay in the global loop. SUBSCRIBE NOW.     Tweet of the Day The Future in 5 Links The tech industry is zeroing in on nuclear power for AI. AI challenges promise big prizes and are getting wild.  Europe mandates anti-speeding tech in new cars. An AI chatbot for public schools has stumbled out of the gate.  You can now ask YouTube to take down deepfakes of yourself. Stay in touch with the whole team: Derek Robertson (drobertson@politico.com); Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@politico.com); Steve Heuser (sheuser@politico.com); Nate Robson (nrobson@politico.com); Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@politico.com); and Christine Mui (cmui@politico.com). If you’ve had this newsletter forwarded to you, you can sign up and read our mission statement at the links provided.   Follow us on Twitter Ben Schreckinger @SchreckReports Derek Robertson @afternoondelete Steve Heuser @sfheuser   Follow us

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