Stephanie Scarbrough via AP
- Former CIA Director Leon Panetta discussed reports of a new Russian weapon.
- Panetta told CNN the weapon could disable US satellites.
- He said that the US was likely developing ways to counter the weapon.
Former CIA Director Leon Panetta said that Russia could "blind" the US by using a nuclear-capable weapon to disable satellites in space.
Speaking to CNN Wednesday, Panetta, who also served as defense secretary under Barack Obama, was taking part in a discussion of an unnamed threat to US national security.
It became (partially) public after US lawmakers started to describe briefings they received about the threat, which they did not name.
Multiple media reports, citing US officials, said the threat was Russia developing a nuclear weapon to be deployed against satellites.
Satellites are pivotal for transmitting information ranging from cellphone data to military communications.
Panetta made some efforts to flesh out how such a system could work.
He spoke in hypothetical terms, and didn't claim to have direct knowledge of the situation.
"If Russia could blind our ability to be able to gather that kind of information, make no mistake about it, that would be an act of war because it would threaten our national security," said Panetta.
He said the US was likely developing a similar capacity to target satellites, and also to defend its own satellites from attacks.
"So I'm sure that the Pentagon is developing the ability not only to track what the Russians are doing and determine whether or not they're going to try to deploy something like this but also how they defend against it if it should happen," he said.
On Wednesday, Republican Rep. Michael Turner of Ohio, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, called on the Biden administration to declassify information on the threat, which he did not describe in any detail.
ABC News and The New York Times later reported that the threat was the development by Russia of a nuclear space weapon, which, according to the reports, could disable civilian communication, GPS, surveillance from space, as well as military command and control.
Other reports described it differently: PBS News reported its sources saying the satellite would be powered by a nuclear reactor but was not itself a nuclear weapon.
A former US official told The Times that the US does not currently have the capacity to counter the threat but that the launch of the Russian weapon did not appear to be imminent.
The use of the weapon would likely breach the 1967 Outer Space Treaty between the US and the Soviet Union (later Russia) and many other nations. The treaty bans signatory nations from putting nuclear weapons in orbit.
Security experts have long believed that if the US and Russia were to go to war, attacks to disable satellites could be among the first moves.
The reports come as House Republicans continued their opposition to a bill that includes $66 billion in aid to Ukraine to help it fight Russia's invasion of its country.