Battlestar Russica: The Strategic Logic of Russian Nuclear Warfare in Space

In February 2024, U.S. Representative Mike Turner announced that American intelligence had discovered a new Russian weapon of significant strategic concern. The intelligence was about a space-based nuclear weapon that Russia was developing and planned to deploy. Russia likely intended to detonate a nuclear device somewhere in orbit. This presents a puzzle, as doing so would have destroyed much of their own space capabilities, including vital military and economic assets. Why would Russia consider a nuclear strike in space? This paper argues that a Russian nuclear detonation in space is consistent with Russian strategic thought and serving as an asymmetric counterspace capability that could negate an area of American strategic superiority or hinder a damage limitation strike against Russia’s nuclear arsenal by destroying space-based ISR capabilities on which tracking mobile missiles rely and degrading potential space-based missile defenses capabilities.