The timing of House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner’s vague warning about a “serious national security threat” allegedly emanating from Russia strikes us as being most peculiar.
Turner wants the Biden administration to declassify some of the information so that it can be discussed publicly, but that seems somewhat unnecessary since it is all being leaked to the usual establishment media stenographers for the intelligence establishment.
According to multiple media reports Turner's concern is related to Russia’s attempts to develop an antisatellite nuclear weapon for use in space.
While the people did not provide further details on the intel, one of them noted the U.S. has for more than a year been concerned about Russia’s potentially creating and deploying an antisatellite nuclear weapon — a weapon the U.S. and other countries would be unable to adequately defend against, wrote Erin Banco, Alexander Ward and Lee Hudson in a report for POLITICO.
This is not a new threat. The Russians (and the Red Chinese) have long been working on weaponizing space – they’ve tested various antisatellite technologies, too.
Russian efforts to develop weapons capable of blinding satellites with lasers, various kinetic means of killing satellites and fractional orbit systems, going back to the Soviet fractional orbital bombardment system program have been known for years in the West.
Have the Russians perfected a system and are now ready to deploy it? At this point nobody in the U.S. intelligence establishment is saying – if they even know.
According to the POLITICO report, House intelligence committee members on Tuesday voted to open the intelligence up for viewing for all members. All Senate members now have access as well.
One House intelligence committee member said the intelligence was “disturbing.” Another said “it’s a serious issue but not an immediate crisis.” Both members and the others familiar with the intelligence were granted anonymity to speak about classified materials.
It is also possible Turner was attempting to raise alarms about Russia’s advancements in space as a way of underscoring the need for lawmakers to approve additional aid to Ukraine. The Senate passed the supplemental bill including $60 billion in aid for Kyiv. It is currently under review by the House.
It is also possible that Turner is attempting to gin-up alarm about Russia as part of a strategy to defeat efforts to reform FISA – the electronic snooping law that was abused to spy on candidate and then-President Donald Trump.
Conservatives and Far Left civil liberties advocates in the House have formed an unlikely coalition that was in position to force reforms, at least until Turner raised the Russian boogey man.
The Biden White House seemed somewhat reluctant to accede to Turner’s request, and there may be a reason for that that Democrats don’t want exposed.
The Biden administration effectively abandoned the American hypersonic missile program, and when Democrats controlled Congress it made significant cuts in the US-based Homeland missile defense systems.
Back in 2021 Adm. Phil Davidson, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said getting an Aegis Ashore system on Guam by 2026 is his number one priority to bolster defenses against advancing Chinese missile capabilities. He added the current THAAD plus an Aegis destroyer are currently only meant to defend against a rogue North Korean missile shot, or a Red Chinese or Russian trans-Pacific attack.
The final conference report agreed by Biden and Congressional Democrats ended up cutting nearly $40 million from the $815 million request to $775 million. The report said this reduction is due to “insufficient justification… and unjustified cost growth.”
The GMD system, based in California and Alaska, designed to respond to intercontinental ballistic missile threats also took a hit from the Democrats. In the appropriations bill signed into law by President Joe Biden in March of 2022, funding for this new layered system was axed due to a “lack of requirement,” wrote John Bedard in an article for ArmsControl.org.
This year, as Mark Levin pointed out during his February 14 broadcast, the Pentagon is expected to take a $30 billion reduction that will hit crucial missile defense programs. For example, a portion of the $2 billion earmarked for missile defenses for Guam – as noted above viewed as important to deter China in the Pacific - is among the suggested cuts. Other programs that could be reduced include upgrades to the homeland missile defense system in Alaska known as Ground Based Interceptors (mentioned above) and RTX Corp-made SM3-1B missiles for Aegis ships.
Is Chairman Turner trying to tell us now there is indeed a “requirement” for Alaska, California and Guam-based missile defense and we need to, as usual, rush to try and catch up?
anti satellite nuclear weapon
space weapons
lasers
House Intelligence Committee
FISA
Ukraine war
missile defense programs
homeland missile defense system Alaska
establishment media
Istanbul talks
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner
Joe Biden administration
Biden foreign policy
Vadim Krasikov
Eurasianist National Bolshevism
Aleksandr Dugin
NATO