“The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming,” was a 1966 American Cold War comedy film directed by Norman Jewison for United Artists. The story involved the grounding of a Soviet submarine near a small New England island and the amusing chaos that followed. Fast forward to February 2024, and in what had the trappings of a low budget sci-fi film, featuring the landing of hostile aliens on the White House lawn, Washington was a buzz about a secret new Russian space weapon that had also arrived seemingly unannounced.

The premature public utterance about the space threat by Representative Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee suggested that the proverbial sky was falling, which of course he couldn’t elaborate on given the classified nature of the intelligence available to him. Administration spokesmen were also taken off guard, especially as they hadn’t yet provided a detailed briefing to Turner’s committee about Russia’s efforts to field an anti-satellite weapon. House speaker Mike Johnson felt obliged to try and dampen things down by stating the national security development was serious, but not urgent. Indeed, he noted that he had been made aware of the matter a month ago and that there was “no need for public alarm”. His message suggested that the American people needn’t stay awake scanning the night sky for nefarious Russian spacecraft.

Nevertheless, Turner’s cryptic comment drew attention to the space domain as yet another realm where Russia harbours aggressive intentions. As Representative Turner is also a supporter of more military support for Ukraine it may have been politically expedient for him to highlight a new Russian threat and one that could impact US national interests directly.

Into this vacuum of official information, it is no wonder that media speculation ran amok. The spectre of nuclear weapons in space was an immediate theme, undoubtedly a function of the ambiguous initial references to Russian efforts to deploy “a nuclear anti-satellite system”.

Obviously, there is a big difference between a system that........

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