It’s just a question. Maybe the article had too many typos or errors of fact. Maybe it exposed national secrets or really annoyed one or more persons in the U.S. government. Maybe Russian or Chinese anti-satellite technology nuked the article from orbit. The Washington Times doesn’t say why it yanked the story promoted on February 21, 2024 in its regularly emailed News Alert, a story headlined “A once-distant threat arrives: How Russia, China could use anti-satellite weapons in war.”
According to the News Alert:
The threat posed by anti-satellite weapons has been steadily approaching, in plain view of everyone, for decades. But as demonstrated by the near-panic that engulfed official Washington last week amid reports the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin may try to put a nuclear anti-satellite weapon in space, there is a growing fear in national security circles that a dangerous confluence of events is taking shape now.
Clicking on the newsletter’s Read More link produces the following message on the linked page: “This story is no longer available on the site. Take a look at some of the other content by going to our home page.”
The home page certainly features plenty of other content to peruse, like “House Freedom Caucus presses Speaker Johnson for spending update” (it’s trillions) or “Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile users hit by widespread U.S. outage,” maybe caused by the same weapon that vaporized the report on “How Russia, China could use anti-satellite weapons in war.”
Conducting a search of the Washington Times site does not shed light. The story “A once-distant threat arrives: How Russia, China…” does pop up in the search results, but the link still takes you to the same dead-end advisory. The next most recent story seems to be one published February 16, 2024: “Congress members weigh in on Rep. Turner’s ringing the alarm on Russian anti-satellite weapon”:
The U.S. has gathered highly sensitive intelligence about Russian anti-satellite weapons that has been shared in recent weeks with the upper echelons of government. That’s according to four people who have been briefed on the intelligence but were not authorized to comment publicly.
They said the capability was not yet operational. The intelligence sparked an urgent but vague warning Wednesday from the Republican head of the House Intelligence Committee, who urged the Biden administration to declassify information about what he called a serious national security threat.
A day later, the Washington Times story does not seem to have been repaired and republished. Is it gone for good?
When we know, you’ll know. Meanwhile, let’s read James Roth’s latest StopTheChinazis.org column, which gives some of the background to the present crisis.
UPDATE: The Washington Times has in fact published an apparent revision of the article it was promoting yesterday. The new article is “How Elon Musk’s satellites may have fueled Putin’s nuclear space dreams” (Washington Times, February 21, 2024).
Capitol Hill and the White House were in scramble mode when the intelligence concerns about a possible Russian space nuke leaked out, and even Mr. Putin felt compelled to weigh in with a denial that one was being planned. But broadly speaking, the threat posed by anti-satellite weapons has been steadily approaching, in plain view of everyone, for decades.
Nothing about near-panic in this version, but we learn of “the growing fear in national security circles that a dangerous confluence of events is taking shape now.”
Public reliance on technology today means that such attacks would be far more devastating than ever before in human history. At the same time, America’s foes may have unprecedented motivation to employ them, as evidenced clearly by Russia’s frustration with the inability to knock out Starlink.
To defeat such a system, the weapons in question could range from traditional missiles targeting one or more satellites to the detonation of a nuclear bomb in space, which could create a massive electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. On the grandest scale, such [anti-satellite] weapons could be unspeakably devastating to the American public and to nations around the world. Cell phones would shut down, GPS systems wouldn’t function, banking access and other civilian applications to the satellite networks heavily relied upon by U.S. military personnel stationed around the world would be blocked.
Some national security insiders fear Mr. Putin could take such a radical step if eventually faced with certain defeat in Ukraine, or otherwise feels boxed in by the West. Mr. Putin denied those accusations this week, saying that Moscow remains “categorically opposed” to weapons in space.
The Russians have been trying to “jam Ukraine’s access to Starlink” but have found “little success.”
