Mysterious Russian Space Nuclear Weapon System Identified as Super-EMP Weapons Capable of Destroying US

Including one of my most hard-hitting and shockingly revealing interviews yet detailing Russia's and China's master plan for destroying the US if we send troops to Ukraine or defend Taiwan militarily

February 28th Update—The Washington Times is reporting that an "Orbiting Chinese warhead is a space-based nuclear weapon, Air Force report says." This is clearly a reference to a Chinese super-EMP satellite similar to Russia's. I have been warning that with North Korea and Iran having super-EMP satellites in low-earth orbit over the US, Russia and China undoubtedly have some as well and now my assessment has proven correct.

February 21st Update—Politico reports that after warning US allies that Russia is planning on deploying its super-EMP satellites within months, the Biden administration has been attempting to get Russia’s allies—China and India—to dissuade Russia from testing one of its super-EMP satellites in space which if detonated over the US could have catastrophic consequences for us. Such a test would violate multiple international treaties.

February 17th Editor’s Note—This article has been updated to reflect the CNN article from last night identifying the Russian space nuclear weapon system as super-EMP satellites.

Last night, I was interviewed on Brannon House’s Worldview Weekend Hour TV show after appearing on his radio show earlier that afternoon. He had asked me to join him on his radio show to discuss the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ successful launch of a nuclear capable Dezful Medium Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBM) with a reported range of at least 1,000 kilometers from a container on a cargo ship, named Shahid Mahdavi in the Gulf of Oman. The reason this is so significant is that no other nation but Russia has previously test-fired a container launched missile from a civilian merchant vessel. Of course, this begs the question as to whether, in the event of war, an Iranian-owned, non-Iran flagged container ship could unload a Dezful nuclear missile container in a US port and drive it on the back of a diesel truck to any location in the US or else simply fire it from port to execute a nuclear first strike against civilian or military targets from US territory. We also discussed why the US Navy is running out of Tomahawk Sea-Launched Cruise Missiles and how it would run out of long-range precision guided munitions within a week of high-intensity combat against PLA Naval forces in the South China Sea all but ensuring any US attempt to defend Taiwan militarily would be unsuccessful even if China refrained from employing any of its powerful cyber, super EMP or nuclear weapons. 

As I related, Iran has likely had nuclear weapons for nearly two decades and has demonstrating potential intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities. The military doctrines of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran all call for them to employ super-Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) weapons to achieve victory over the US early on in any war they might fight against us.  Both Iran and North Korea have deployed two super-EMP satellites in low earth orbit at an altitude of 280 miles which is the optimum altitude to execute a super EMP attack on the US homeland. Their plan would likely be to engage in successive rather than simultaneous EMP strikes so the 2^nd detonation would aim to take out any electronic systems that survive the EMP first strike most importantly NC3 system necessary. 

We discussed how Iran, Russia, China or North Korea could potentially use a massive cyberattack against the US or a regional super-EMP attack to blackmail the US into what I termed a conditional surrender by forcing us to close all 750 of its overseas military bases and bring all of its troops home while de-alerting the land and sea legs of its nuclear triad essentially making them sitting ducks for enemy attack. By effectively removing the US as a nuclear superpower and forcing us back to our own continent and hemisphere, the Sino-Russian military alliance would likely allow the US to continue to exist, but unfortunately, I think this is likely a best-case scenario for over 300 million Americans in the event we go to war with Russia over Ukraine or with China over Taiwan.

Here is a link to my TV interview: “National Alert Over Russia Has Odd Timing and How NATO is Pushing for World War III with Russia”

Turner’s Motivations for Revealing Game-Changing Russian Weapon System

During the radio interview, there was a breaking news story about the reported Russian space nuclear weapons, so we focused the last part of the radio interview my entire TV interview discussing them. First, we discussed House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner’s motivations in seeking to declassify US intelligence assessing Russia is planning to deploy a new nuclear weapon system in space. Brannon pointed out that the timing of the requested release was very suspicious coming only two days after House Speaker Mike Johnson declared that the Senate Ukraine aid bill was dead on arrival in the House and that he would not take up the bill until the Senate had first passed the House’s HR-2 border security legislation. I agreed with him, stating that Turner has proven fanatical when it comes to unnecessarily prolonging Biden’s war against Russia in Ukraine in a failed effort to weaken Russia militarily, blind to the increasing dangers of provoking Russia to destroy the US and our NATO allies in response to our escalating proxy attacks on their military forces, their critical infrastructure most notably the Nord Stream pipelines and against military-strategic targets inside Russia itself including nuclear bomber and naval bases.

The Washington Post reported that after examining the classified intelligence on this new “incredibly destabilizing” Russian nuclear weapon system, one member of Congress called it a potential “geo-strategic game changer.” It also reported that “the information was obtained using authorities granted to the intelligence community under Section 702 of a key electronic surveillance law that is being hotly debated in Congress, according to officials with knowledge of the matter” and that “Turner, a strong proponent of the surveillance authority, appears to want to use the information about the adversary capability to convince skeptical colleagues that 702 is an indispensable intelligence tool, one official said.”

Initially, I suspected Turner was colluding with the Biden administration to declassify the intelligence on Russian space nukes to pressure Speaker Johnson to change course and allow a vote on the $60 billion Ukraine aid bill days passed by the US Senate on Monday after he announced the bill was DOA in the House. It would be supremely ironic if Johnson and other House Republicans were to be spooked into voting for it since it is US military aid to Ukraine which has been serving to provoke Russia to attack the US and, thus, the passage of this bill would be akin to throwing gasoline on the fire. Even Sean Hannity stated on his Fox News show last night that House Republicans should oppose this bill and that “we cannot be fighting a proxy war with Vladimir Putin and Russia unless, maybe, we want Russia to become more aggressive. That’s a potential outcome also.”  However, the White House has denied any collusion with Turner and said he acted on his own in leaking the existence of this new Russian nuclear space weapon system.

My suspicion has since been echoed by others, most notably by Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), who accused Turner of having corrupt motives in trying to politicize the intelligence. Ogles is seeking to open a formal inquiry into Turner over his disclosure of sensitive intelligence examining whether he should remain Chairman of the Committee. As Senator JD Vance (R-OH) recently pointed out, the Senate Ukraine aid bill was written by the Democrats and their neoconservative Republican allies to attempt to tie the hands of President Trump forcing him to continue sending arms to Ukraine for the first nine months of the next presidential term should be win the November 2024 election in the hopes it will scuttle his plans to negotiate a peace deal ending the war in Ukraine shortly after he is inaugurated. Then, if Trump ignores the law mandating him to continue to send arms to Ukraine, Congressional Democrats plan to use that as the basis to impeach him over it. When asked about the report, Kremlin press secretary Dmitri Peskov did not deny the existence of this Russian space-based nuclear delivery system but he repeated Republican claims that reports about this weapon system was an attempt to pressure the Republican-led House of Representatives to pass the $60 billion Ukraine funding bill passed by the US Senate earlier this week. Earlier today, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that intelligence about this Russian nuclear threat would not be declassified, effectively denying Turner’s request.

Purpose of Russian Nuclear Space System is Not What it Appears

These news reports indicate that Russia may be on the verge of deploying a nuclear ASAT system in space with the primary mission of taking out our nuclear C3 satellites, early warning and GPS satellites.  However, in my assessment, Russia has no need to deploy nuclear weapons in space to destroy US satellites because they likely already have the ability to disable or destroy them using cyberattacks alone. Russia has been assessed by US intelligence as having the most powerful cyber-offensive capabilities in the world. Recent revelations during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that convened in March revealed that the US intelligence assesses that both Russia and China have the capability to take down all US satellites within the first two hours of the commencement of a future war with us.  

Last week, I attended an open-source cyber and intelligence panel with former Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) and COL Erik Berdy. Rep. Stewart said there were only three briefings while he was on the House Intelligence Committee where he came out of the meeting wondering how we could have allowed ourselves to become so vulnerable and one of them was a cyber threat building. Chris Stewart said we are hit by tens of millions of cyberattacks a day by Russia, China, NK and Iran but we don’t cyberattack them back. This is what I've been warning about since 2021 that China will take us down with a cyber and counterspace first strike on Day One and basically win the war in a single day if Biden goes to war with China over Taiwan.

COL Berdy, a former US Army brigade commander who served as a principal assistant to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff GEN. Mark Milley, stated Chinese, Russian and North Korean doctrine is to hit the US so hard with a comprehensive nationwide cyberattacks at the onset of the war that America shuts down and we are unable to surge any additional military capabilities to the European and Pacific theaters to fight them or retaliate against them, thus ensuring their victory. He concluded by stating that the focus of US national security policy today is to “avoid war with China” which is reassuring but given Biden’s repeated pledges he would defend Taiwan militarily appears misleading.

Why is Russia Wanting to Deploy These Weapons?

So the question is why would Russia put nuclear armed satellites in space to accomplish a mission already covered by Russian cyber forces? Clearly, this is Russian dezinformatsiya designed to conceal their actual purpose. There are three additional possible reasons Russia might want to deploy nuclear weapons in space. The first reason would be to conduct a super-Electromagnetic (EMP) attack to destroy America’s critical infrastructure and severely degrade our nuclear command, control and communication systems while taking down America’s electrical power grid and other critical infrastructure necessary to sustain US military forces in the hopes we will be unable to launch a nuclear retaliatory response. The Congressional EMP Commission has warned that such an attack could cause up to ninety percent of Americans to die within a year.

The second reason Russia might have to deploy nuclear weapons in space would be to use a nuclear weapon launched from orbit to stage a nuclear decapitation first strike to take out the Nuclear Command Authority including both the President and Vice President in Washington, DC and along with them all three nuclear footballs with only five to seven minutes warning. If such a decapitation strike were successful, the US would likely be incapable of launching a nuclear retaliatory strike in response. A decapitation nuclear first strike would likely not be employed until after a nuclear aggressor had already staged a massive cyberattack, counterspace attack and optionally a super EMP attack to try to severely degrade our nuclear C3 system to minimize the risk we would be able to retaliate in kind. It is worth noting that just last week, it was reported that a Chinese spy stole trade secret technology worth hundreds of millions of dollars showing how the US is able to detect nuclear missile launches and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles. This disclosure to Beijing raises the possibility that China might be able to employ potential countermeasures to defeat US sensor networks in an attempt to reduce the warning time that US leaders would need in order to decide whether to launch a nuclear retaliatory strike before impact.

Russia developed, tested, and deployed a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System designed to execute a nuclear decapitation first strike from orbit with mere minutes warning beginning in 1967 resulting in the signing of the Outer Space Treaty later that year, which bans the positioning of nuclear weapons in orbit. Russia and China are signatories but neither North Korea nor Iran ratified the treaty. However, there is no way to verify Russian or Chinese compliance with the treaty and Russia has a history of violating all its nuclear arms control treaties, often quite egregiously. China recently deployed seven satellites and space objects from its remotely controlled space shuttle, at least two of which could not be identified and could very well be nuclear-armed satellites or weapon systems.

Russia reportedly retired its FOBS nuclear missile program in 1982-1983 but it’s likely they retained a limited number of nuclear weapons deployed in space since then particularly given they did not honor their pledge to withdraw nuclear MRBMs in Cuba following the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, offering to hand them over to the control of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro until he threatened to fire them on the US. In addition, Russia’s Avanguard hypersonic glide vehicle has been operational for several years and could potentially execute a nuclear decapitation strike from orbit.  Russia’s Satan 2 ICBMs are reportedly capable of carrying 24 Avanguard hypersonic glide vehicles per missile. Hypersonic glide vehicles travel at speeds of up to Mach 28, have unlimited range and can hit any target in the world within half an hour, China tested its own DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle back in 2020 prompting then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley to exclaim it was akin to “a Sputnik moment” showing how far behind the US was behind China in terms of nuclear superweapon technology and highlighting yet another massive US intelligence failure which it did not see coming.

Artist’s rendition of Reagan’s planned Project Excalibur, part of his SDI program, in which the US would deploy nuclear weapons in space to enable expendable X-Ray laser satellites to destroy incoming Soviet nuclear missiles in their boost phase

The last reason Russia might want to deploy nuclear weapons in space would be to employ X-Ray lasers to shoot down incoming nuclear ballistic missiles in their boost phase just like Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative R&D missile defense program envisioned doing as part of Project Excalibur, which was a part of Reagan’s SDI program, but was abandoned in 1988. Russia already possesses the world’s most massive national missile defense system with 10,000 mostly modern S-400 and S-500 ABMs but having X-Ray lasers in space would add another layer of protection to Russia’s nationwide nuclear missile shield, serving to greatly increase Russian leaders’ confidence that Russia could not only survive, but actually win, a nuclear war with the US.

The Washington Examiner reported that Russia was not planning on deploying a single nuclear-armed satellite but rather an entire network of satellites into space for the purpose of disabling or destroying US military, early warning, and GPS satellites in the event of the outbreak of a direct war between the US and the Russian Federation. US intelligence has stated these new Russian nuclear satellites, have yet to be deployed.  CNN reports that multiple sources familiar with the intelligence report in question are stating that the new space nuclear weapon system Russia is on the verge of deploying are in fact super-EMP satellites.  However, given the fact that Russia likely does not need to field a redundant nuclear capability to take out US satellites and that the White House has stated that the system “doesn’t (directly) threaten people” their actual purpose is almost certainly to conduct a super EMP first strike on the US. A former CIA agent I spoke to has assessed that the cover story that these Russian super EMP weapons are meant to be used against satellites is most likely not Russian disinformation but is rather a controlled leak on the part of the CIA to reduce public alarm over this existential threat. Of course, if the CIA is covering up the true purpose of the Russian space nuclear weapon from US cirizens they may also be covering up the fact its already been deployed. In any case, this is a capability that Russia developed and shared with North Korea a quarter century ago to be deployed in the event the Russian leadership assessed that Moscow assesses the threat of a direct war with the US to be imminent so Russia can stage a super-EMP surprise attack on the US homeland with little to no strategic warning.

Putin Wants Peace with the US and NATO

As I pointed out in my comprehensive review of his interview with Tucker Carlson last week, I believe that Putin is very much sincere in wanting peace with the US and an end to the war in Ukraine, which he has spent the last two years attempting to realize, and that he does not intend to launch a pre-emptive nuclear/super-EMP strike on the US. Rather, he is deploying these superweapons as a hedge in the event that the US opts to implement the recently leaked British proposal to send a NATO expeditionary force to defend western and central Ukraine all the way to the Dnipro River in the event a massive Russian offensive succeeds in breaking through Ukrainian defenses threatening a Ukrainian military collapse. Putin has all but declared that he would be willing to escalate to the nuclear level rather than give up any of Russia’s newly annexed territories from Ukraine.  Were Russia to actually launch an entire network of satellites, it would likely deploy a full mix of all three capabilities, assuming they don’t already have orbital nuclear strike and super-EMP satellites in space, which they likely do, while continuing to deceive US intelligence that their intended purpose is to destroy US satellites.

Russia continues to develop and deploy these superweapons as a hedge in case the US opts to implement the recently leaked British proposal to send a NATO expeditionary force to defend western and central Ukraine all the way to the Dnipro River in the event a Russian offensive achieves a major breakthrough against Ukrainian forces. Putin has all but declared that he would be willing to escalate to the nuclear level rather than give up any of Russia’s newly annexed territories from Ukraine.  Were Russia to launch an entire network of nuclear-armed satellites, it would likely deploy a mix of these capabilities, , while continuing to deceive US intelligence that their intended purpose is to destroy US satellites.

I concluded that Russia and China would not likely stage a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US but would rather start with cyber and counterspace attacks against the US homeland and US military forces to defeat us on the first day of the war and then if that was not sufficient would escalate to a super-EMP and nuclear decapitation strikes. Regardless, this alarming revelation of a new Russian nuclear capability constitutes yet another indicator and warning of escalating Russian preparations for fighting a nuclear war with the US which thanks to its extensive preparations for such a war as well as the failure of the US to modernize its badly undersized and increasingly obsolescent nuclear arsenal or deploy a national missile defense system, it would be sure to win.

US Should Pursue a Policy of Peace through Strength to Avert World War Three

The US trails Russia, China and even North Korea when it comes to nuclear superweapons and has no plans to develop any nuclear hypersonic missiles, nuclear hypersonic glide vehicles, super EMP weapons or deploy nuclear weapons in space. Despite the growing nuclear threat from Russia and China, not only does the US have no defense against these types of weapons but it is official US policy not to defend against Russian and Chinese nuclear missile attack meaning that a US President would have no choice but to stand idly by as tens of millions of Americans to be killed in the event of a Russian or Chinese nuclear missile attack. Sadly, US leaders have demonstrated no interest in defending US citizens against these existential threats, only to defend other countries half a world away in which the US has little to no national security interests. Furthermore, the US has not built a single strategic nuclear warhead or strategic nuclear delivery system since 1992 in the face of China’s massive ongoing nuclear missile buildup to 4,000 nuclear weapons. During the same period, Russia, China and North Korea have near-fully modernized their nuclear arsenals with over a dozen new strategic delivery systems and have produced several thousand additional nuclear warheads leaving the US hopelessly overmatched with increasingly pronounced nuclear inferiority.

Accordingly, instead of worrying about defending Ukraine’s borders or helping Israel overrun and conquer Gaza, US leaders should be laser focused on protecting the lives of the American people they are sworn to protect by avoiding war with our four nuclear adversaries, which are closely allied together, and likely have super-EMP satellites in orbit that could destroy the US with little to no warning. Disturbingly, thanks to the near treasonous dereliction of duty on the part of US leaders over many decades with the notable exception of President Trump, the US has no defense against any of these existential threats. While most US leaders and most Americans believe the US remains the strongest military and nuclear superpower on Earth, our nuclear capabilities pale in comparison to those possessed by the Sino-Russian military alliance. The US could have a conventional military ten times bigger and better than Russia's and China's combined and we would still lose a war with them if they used cyber, EMP and/or a nuclear decapitation first strike to win the war against us in a single day.

The US spends a fraction of our defense budget on strategic and homeland defense. We should be spending over half of our defense budget to defend the US against these nation-ending threats, and we shouldn't spend another dime on foreign aid until we have finished doing so. America lives in a glass house so we ought to stop throwing rocks at our enemies lest they decide to start throwing some back at us shattering our great country to an extent that we will never be able to put it back together again. That is why it's so imperative that the US acts immediately to abandon its potentially suicidal policy of perpetual military confrontation, nuclear brinkmanship, and no-win proxy wars with Russia in Ukraine, with Iran in the Middle East and with China over Taiwan and pursue a policy focused on the peaceful, diplomatic resolution of major conflicts if we have any hope of averting a Third World War. The release of this new intelligence about the existential threat posed by super-EMP attack should accelerate efforts in Congress to fund the hardening of our electrical power grid which could be done for only five percent of what the US spends on its defense budget every year.

© David T. Pyne 2024

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He currently serves as Executive Vice President of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and as a member of the Committee on the Present Danger-China. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to a top-tier presidential candidate. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “A Nuclear Posture Review for Advanced Technology Weapons” will be published in spring 2024. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Media Interviews

January 15th-Interview with Nima Rostami Alkhorshid on his “Dialogue Works” podcast to discuss the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine. and the prospects for a peaceful end to both conflicts. Here is the link.

January 21st—Interview with former Salt Lake County District Attorney Republican nominee Danielle Ahn on her “Danielle Ahn Direct” podcast to discuss the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the ramifications of the Taiwanese presidential election. Here is the link to the interview.

January 23rd—Interview with Jon Twitchell on his Talk with Jon show to rebut Joel Skousen’s false claims about my positions on foreign policy issues and discuss the rising threat of the war with China following the DPP presidential election victory of a candidate which China has denounced as a harbinger for war with the PRC. Here is the link to the radio interview.

January 23rd—I will be presenting a briefing at the Food Storage Depot at 10366 Redwood Road in South Jordan, Utah from 6:30-8pm entitled “How American Can Avert World War Three and Ensure our National Survival.” The link to the presentation is listed above.

January 24th—Interview with Brannon Howse on his Worldview Weekend Broadcast Network to discuss this article. Here is the link to the recording.

January 25th—Interview on Living Hope Esparanza to discuss the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the coming war with China over Taiwan. Here is a link to my interview.

January 26th—Interview with Paul Jensen on KTALK AM 1640 from 7am-8am MDT to rebut Joel Skousen’s false claims about my positions on foreign policy issues and discuss the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the possibility they may escalate to World War Three. Here is the link.

January 31st—Interview with Brannon Howse on his Worldview Weekend Broadcast Network to discuss the increasing Chinese cyber threat, the chances of war with China over Taiwan later this year, the Iranian nuclear threat and how the US should respond to Iranian proxy attacks in the Middle East. Here is a link to the interview.

February 2nd—Interview with Jared Anderson and Holly Crowley-Rabanne who host the Tooele Happy Hour podcast to discuss what our citizens can do to help save America from an unnecessary world war with Russia and China as well as what they can do to help save their families in the event the power gets turned off for good at the start of a catastrophic war. Here is the link.

February 9th-Interview with REN TV to discuss Zelensky’s likely reasons for firing of Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zeluzhny and how it will likely affect the course of the war in Ukraine.

February 14th—Interview with Brannon Howse on his Worldview Weekend Broadcast Network radio and TV shows to discuss the threat of a Iranian nuclear/super EMP missile launch from a cargo ship as well as the request by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner to declassify a Russian plan to put a nuclear (likely super-EMP) weapon in orbit to use to destroy US satellites on the first day of any war with them. Here is the link to the TV interview.

Upcoming Media Interviews

April 18th—I will be presenting an extensive briefing at the Firm Foundation Expo at the Mountain America Expo Center at 9575 South State Street in Sandy, Utah at 5pm to discuss the increasing threat of World War Three with Russia, China, North Korea and Iran and what we need to do to avert it.