Senior Policy Director John Erath spoke with Business Insider about potential Russian space weaponry.
However, Russia has been developing anti-satellite weapons for years, John Erath, senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, told BI.
“They’ve tested one, they’ve destroyed one of their own satellites with them, and they’ve proven that they can do this,” Erath said. “So these reports that have come out this week are not at all, in any way, surprising. It is certainly highly believable that they would be working on something new and more efficient as a way to take down American satellites. But that’s where this gets a little bit complicated because a nuclear weapon isn’t really that.”
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The most significant risk at this time, both Samson and Erath noted, is the potential for such a weapon to increase international tension between the US and Russia and normalize nuclear threats as a replacement for diplomacy.
“If nuclear blackmail becomes normalized as a tool of international relations, then everybody’s going to want to have the capability to do it,” Erath said. “Ultimately, you don’t make threats if you’re not prepared to carry them out, and somebody at some point is going to want to carry one out.”
He added: “And a nuclear attack anywhere in the world is a very serious thing. It’s not going to be the old Cold War mantra of destroying the world many times over; that’s science fiction. But the effects in its place, both in the neighborhood and worldwide, will still be catastrophic.” Read more
