A world affairs expert has said that the UK is not prepared for a “conventional war,” which comes as Vladimir Putin is allegedly planning to launch nuclear weapons into space.
The expert warned that launching a nuclear weapon in space will take out satellites that will leave NATO “deaf” and “blind.”
US intelligence has said this is a “serious national security threat” and if a nuclear weapon exploded in space it could take out numerous satellites.
Former US Army general Barry McCaffrey said that NATO’s GPS and communications are “all fundamentally space based,” therefore any attack on US satellites would be “an act of war.”
Prof Anthony Glees, security and intelligence expert at the University of Buckingham, told the Mirror, “This is not a new space nuclear weapon to wreak havoc on Earth.”
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He warned that as a result this could leave the US and NATO “deaf, blind and speechless in the event of a Russian attack.”
He said, “I think this weapon or weapon system represents a huge danger to NATO, but it’s important to understand precisely why.
“There is nothing new about the idea of nukes in space being used to shower warheads down on NATO states.
“Russia has always led here. On October 1957 they launched the unmanned Sputnik – I remember it well, as schoolboys we listened to its bleeps from space, there was even a pop song that went ‘bleep bleep’.
“The next month they sent that poor little Moscow stray dog, Laika, into space to show a living being could exist there.
“She died, alone, in space, awfully sad story. But this is not a new space nuclear weapon to wreak havoc on Earth.
2What’s new here and why it is so worrying is that it seems intended to be a space weapon to destroy the US’s highly sophisticated satellite communications network, so a weapon to be used in space itself.
“This is what is regarded as a serious National Security threat by the White House and indeed by all NATO states because the whole of NATO relies on US communications satellites for its command and control structures.
“We’re told that US Congress and all the US’s NATO allies have been informed.
“The Russian weapon would render NATO and the USA in particular deaf, blind, and speechless in the event of a Russian attack. US comms satellites transmit billions of bytes of data every single hour of the day and night.
“NATO members would be rendered almost totally vulnerable to whatever Putin decided to throw at them and coordinated action would become impossible, were this weapon to be up and running.
“We’re told that the USA has no weapon that could counter this. But other important things would flow from the deployment of this weapon.
“We know that nuclear-armed ICBMs could still be picked up by radar, giving the US and its allies time to launch a counter-attack as part of our policy of Mutual Assured Destruction. This new weapon would not affect that capability or the planned Armageddon response.
“However, it would affect the US and NATO in the event of a conventional attack on a NATO state or states by Russia, which, to my mind, confirms that this is this, rather than a nuclear war, that underpins Putin’s strategic thinking. It’s a conventional war in Europe that this new Russian weapon would stymie. It’s another argument in favour of ensuring Ukraine does not lose the war Putin started and that we in the UK are properly prepared for a conventional war, which we are not.”
Prof Glees said that the government must prepare to organise conscription across the UK which echoes what the head of the British Army, General Sir Patrick Sanders said last month.
Prof Glees said last month that General Sir Patrick is “absolutely right on this” that the British government must start preparing for some sort of national service.
He added, “The UK Government should plan to sign up volunteers now and over the next three years and ‘the whole of the nation’ should prepare for conscription within six years unless Putin were defeated.”
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said No 10 does not agree, adding, “The British military has a proud position of being a voluntary force. As I say, there’s no plan for conscription.”
