From global communications systems to financial transactions to precision-guided munitions, the prosperity and safety of the modern world relies on the day-to-day operations of satellites. For that reason, Ohio Congressman Mike Turner’s disclosure in February 2024 of Russian intentions to develop a nuclear-tipped, in-orbit, anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon sent shockwaves throughout Western capitals.¹ Representative Turner described the Russian development as a “day zero” capability, precipitating a situation where “no one can count on space the next day.”² According to Assistant Defense Secretary for Space Policy John Plumb, detonation of such weapon “at the right magnitude in the right location,” could render vital satellites inoperable.³

With the United States — and the world — so reliant on space infrastructure, the West must make every effort to dissuade Russia from deploying such an ASAT capability. Counterintuitively, part of that deterrence involves ensuring a “day one” strategy is ready to go into effect should those efforts fail. Having a credible strategy to confound Russia’s attempts at such an asymmetric advantage makes the possibility itself more remote.

Asymmetric Vulnerabilities in Space

America’s relative dependence on space is the heart of the issue.⁴ While the United States had 7,104 operational satellites and 282 military satellites in 2024, Russia, by contrast, maintained only 224 operational satellites and just 84 military satellites.⁵ Yet the extensive U.S. satellite network creates vulnerabilities to adversary ASAT capabilities: most American precision-guided munitions, communication, and navigation systems are satellite-reliant. As Commander of Space Operations Command General David N. Miller aptly points out: 

“We rely on space in almost every military formation we have. Carrier strike group through infantry brigade through Marine expeditionary unit, all of them were built and have some level of dependence on integrating space into their formation.”⁶

In the Russian military, satellites play nowhere near as central a role.⁷ Russia’s lack of open optical and synthetic aperture radar satellites has created deficiencies in command, control, and communications. These deficiencies have resulted in such poor battlefield performance that Russian forces have resorted to unsecured communication channels, such as mobile phones.⁸ Russian remote-sensing assets also have a high failure rate, fail to meet the requirements of end-users, and “are not competitive with equivalent foreign capabilities.”⁹

This certainly leads to profound disadvantages on the battlefield, but it also indemnifies Russia to certain lines of attack while leaving the United States vulnerable to them.

In response to the U.S. military’s dependence on space assets, Russia has developed kinetic and non-kinetic ASAT capabilities. These include direct-ascent ASAT missiles, co-orbital satellites designed to collide or shoot down other satellites in orbit, ground-based lasers, cyberattacks, and satellite jamming systems.¹⁰

To avoid what former head of United States Strategic Command John Hyten describes as creating a small number of “big, fat, juicy targets” for adversary ASAT capabilities, the United States Space Development Agency is developing proliferated and small low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations.¹¹ These ensure that space capabilities withstand the destruction of a small number of space assets.¹² However, Russia’s nuclear-tipped, in-orbit ASAT capability threatens to offset this countermeasure by disabling all satellites in LEO through a high-altitude nuclear explosion.¹³

Although this detonation would destroy Russian satellites, the United States has more to lose in operational military capabilities and economic infrastructure.

Confounding the Adversary

Fortunately, the United States has experience competing in strategic asymmetries. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union maintained quantitative superiority in Europe with a 10:1 advantage in standing divisions.¹⁴ By the 1970s, the Soviet Union had surpassed the United States in the number of warheads and delivery systems.¹⁵ Despite these advantages on paper, the United States prevented Moscow from leveraging its – at times – superior conventional and strategic nuclear forces by confounding Soviet strategic calculations. 

In 1980, Jimmy Carter signed Presidential Directive 59 (PD-59), directing a nuclear war strategy “so that the adversary would not achieve his war aims and would suffer costs that are unacceptable.”¹⁶ The architects of PD-59 envisioned a nuclear strategy that targeted adversary nuclear forces, command-and-control targets, and military industrial facilities to deny the Soviet Union any advantage gained from a nuclear exchange.¹⁷  Former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown expressed that PD-59 was made to dislodge Soviet confidence in their ability to win and survive a nuclear war and to control escalation in a nuclear exchange.¹⁸

Whether the Soviet Union believed a nuclear war was survivable or winnable is controversial.¹⁹ However, the principle remains the same: deterring a Russian high-altitude nuclear detonation requires understanding Russian strategic culture, doctrine, and intentions. Russia views space as a critical enabler of U.S. precision-guidance and technological advantage.²⁰ Russia also believes dependence on space is a critical vulnerability in Western military systems. The United States must deny Russia the strategic gains from deploying a nuclear-tipped, in-orbit ASAT capability and persuade Russia that deployment will be more detrimental than maintaining the status quo. 

The United States must also develop the capabilities to credibly escalate conflict and deny Russia’s ability to wage war in space. 

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, one of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s fears was an invasion of Cuba leading to nuclear escalation and war. The United States had the capability to invade and strike Soviet R-12 medium-range ballistic missiles in Cuba.²¹ Instead, the Kennedy Administration pursued a quarantine of the island. Yet this ability to escalate was crucial in convincing Khrushchev to withdraw Russia’s nuclear warheads. Deterrence relies on withheld escalation; without this, the Kennedy Administration would have faced an emboldened Khrushchev.

For the United States in space, this involves developing the capabilities that threaten adversary ASAT capabilities and provide the flexibility to respond to an ASAT attack. Even if Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t afraid of the threat of escalation, holding at risk Russia’s ASAT capabilities – especially nuclear – limits the potential damage of ASAT weapons on American situational awareness and economic infrastructure. 

Strengthen, Diversify, Win

This means strengthening satellite constellations, diversifying position navigation and timing (PNT), and ensuring potential retaliation against Russian ASAT weapons. Resilience and diversification can persuade Putin that there is little strategic benefit in a high-altitude nuclear detonation. Simultaneously, securing the ability to survive and win an exchange will transform Putin’s potential threat into a liability.

First, the United States and its allies must strengthen space resilience. Alongside proliferated space constellations to mitigate the effects of ASAT capabilities, the United States must develop cheaper, radiation-hardened electronics to enhance the survivability of LEO satellites outside the direct vicinity of a high-altitude nuclear detonation. 

Second, alternative position, navigation, and timing (AltPNT) systems are necessary for situational awareness, command and control, and precision targeting in GPS-denied environments. Deploying Enhanced Long-Range Navigation Systems that use terrestrial radio towers to transmit PNT information will be critical to fighting under denied-space conditions.²²

Precision-guided munitions, the backbone of U.S. concepts of operations, often rely on a kill chain dependent on data from satellite constellations.²³ Investing in visual navigation systems can assist in weaning precision-guided munitions off satellite data. Artificial intelligence algorithms can analyze images to determine precise location without satellite data. 

AltPNT systems are often slower, less accurate, and less ranged compared to satellite constellations that underpin U.S. situational awareness.²⁴ However, investments in AltPNT provide assistance in GPS-denied environments where accessibility to PNT systems is lacking. In some instances, such as with terrestrial radio towers, it forces Russian planners to account for the operability of U.S. military targets that enable such precision-guidance.

Third, the United States needs the capabilities to eliminate co-orbital ASAT capabilities and kinetic kill vehicles. Improving the defensive capabilities of the U.S. PNT is not enough. The United States requires air-launched ASAT missiles or co-orbital kinetic kill vehicles capable of intercepting an adversary’s anti-satellite weapon. Co-orbital kinetic kill vehicles allow decision makers to act quickly on intelligence indicating a high likelihood of use of in-orbit ASAT weapons – conventional or nuclear. If Russia and China destroy potential American co-orbital ASAT weapons in a first strike, air-launched ASAT missiles provide the flexibility to destroy adversary in-orbit ASAT capabilities from Earth.

There is also precedent for investing in ASAT capabilities to neutralize adversary ASAT capabilities. In 1985, the United States developed the ASM-135A air-launched ASAT missile in anticipation of Soviet “killer satellites” that could destroy American reconnaissance satellites.²⁵ Although the U.S. Air Force discontinued its ASAT program in 1988, adversaries are increasingly weaponizing “killer satellites” to exploit dependencies in space.²⁶ The United States must restart its ASAT program to prevent vulnerabilities and contend with revived threats of a nuclear space detonation.    

Ideally, the United States should invest in such capabilities to convince Russia, specifically President Putin, that the deployment of a nuclear-tipped, in-orbit ASAT capability may be met with pre-emptive action.

Russia, China, and the United States have fundamentally different strategic objectives in space. While Russia and China seek to defeat U.S.-operated critical enablers, the United States only needs to intercept adversarial co-orbitals and kinetic kill vehicles. Thus, the United States shouldn’t match Russia and China’s ASAT weapons capability-for-capability. Instead, capabilities should be tailored to destroying in-orbit ASAT threats.

The goal is not to destroy Chinese and Russian satellite constellations but to defeat the platforms that threaten U.S. satellite constellations. 

As Russia and China identify U.S. satellites as critical enablers, adversaries will continue to weaponize space assets. Increasing the resilience of satellite PNT isn’t enough; the United States must turn adversary ASAT capabilities into a strategic liability, force adversaries to invest in countermeasures, and diversify sources of PNT. As Representative Mike Turner warned, the deployment of a nuclear-tipped, in-orbit ASAT capability will be a Cuban Missile Crisis in space, and the United States – through technological innovation – needs to ensure its strength to tackle this crisis.²⁷

1. Minho Kim, “Intelligence Chairman Defends His Hints About a Russian Space Weapon,” New York Times, February 18, 2024. ↩︎
2. “Turner Warns of Russia’s Nuclear Anti-Satellite Weapons Program During Speech at CSIS,” U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, June 20, 2024. ↩︎
3. Audrey Decker, “Russian space nuke could render low-Earth orbit unusable for a year, US official says,” Defense One, May 1, 2024. ↩︎
4. Simone McCarthy, “America’s military has the edge in space. China and Russia are in a counterspace race to disrupt it,” CNN, May 27, 2024. ↩︎
5. “Space Data Navigator,” American Enterprise Institute. ↩︎
6. David N. Miller Jr, “The Space Force’s Critical Role in National Security,” U.S. Department of State, May 9, 2024. ↩︎
7. Clayton Swope and Makena Young, “Is There a Path to Counter Russia’s Space Weapons?” Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 28, 2024. ↩︎
8. Robin Dickey and Michael P. Gleason, “Space and War in Ukraine: Beyond Satellites,” Æther: A Journal of Strategic Airpower & Spacepower, April 3, 2024. ↩︎
9. Anatoly Zak, “Russian Military and Dual-Purpose Spacecraft: Latest Status and Operational Overview,” Center for Naval Analyses, June 5, 2019. ↩︎
10. Jaganath Sankaran, “Russia’s Anti-Satellite Weapons: An Asymmetric Response to U.S. Aerospace Superiority,” Arms Control Association, March 1, 2022. ↩︎
11. Sandra Erwin, “STRATCOM Chief Hyten: ‘I will not support buying big satellites that make juicy targets’” SpaceNews, November 19, 2017. ↩︎
12. Rachael Zisk, “The National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA): An Explainer,” Space Development Agency, December 5, 2022. ↩︎
13. Audrey Decker, “Russian Space Nuke Could Render Low-Earth Orbit Unusable for a Year, US Official says,” Defense One, May 1, 2024. ↩︎
14. Richard A. Bitzinger, “Assessing the Conventional balance in Europe, 1945-1975,” Rand Corporation, May, 1989 ↩︎
15. Herbert Goldhamer, “The Soviet Union in a Period of Strategic Parity,” Rand Corporation, November, 1971; Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, “Nuclear U.S. and Soviet/Russian Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, 1959-2008,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 27, 2015. ↩︎
16. “Jimmy Carter’s Controversial Nuclear Targeting Directive PD-59 Declassified,” Digital National Security Archive, September 14, 2012. ↩︎
17. “CIA Versus DOD: Competing Misconceptions of Strategic Assessment,” Central Intelligence Agency, July 29, 2014. ↩︎
18. Harold Brown, “A Countervailing View,” Foreign Policy, September 24, 2012. ↩︎
19. John G. Hines et al., “Soviet Intentions 1965-1985: An Analytical Comparison of U.S.-Soviet Assessments During the Cold War,” BDM Federal, Inc., September 22, 1995. ↩︎
20. Jaganath Sankaran, “Russia’s Anti-Satellite Weapons: A Hedging and Offsetting Strategy to Deter Western Aerospace Forces,” June 22, 2022. ↩︎
21. Michael Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khruschev, and
    Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. New York: Vintage, 2008. ↩︎
22. Pyo-Woong Son et al., “Assessing eLoran as a Complementary GNSS for Advanced Air Mobility,” Institute of Navigation, April 16, 2024. ↩︎
23. Heather Penney, “Winning the Kill Chain Competition,” Air & Space Forces Magazine, July 28, 2023. ↩︎
24. David W. Allen, “Alt PNT — The Gateway to PNT Resilience,” Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration, June 22, 2023. ↩︎
25. “Vought ASM-135A Anti-Satellite Missile,” National Museum of the United States Air Force. ↩︎
26. Peter Grier, “The Flying Tomato Can,” Air & Space Forces Magazine, February 1, 2009. ↩︎
27. Brad Dress, “House Intel Chair Warns of ‘Cuban Missile Crisis in Space’ with Russia,” The Hill, June 20, 2024. ↩︎