The successful test of anti-satellite weapons, which Russia carried out on November 15, caused a nervous reaction in the United States and Great Britain. The well-known political scientist Yevgeny Satanovsky explained why this test launch was needed and why the West reacted so nervously to it.
Actually, the idea of destroying alien satellites in orbit belongs to the Americans. Back in the late 1950s, at the dawn of the space age, they launched anti-satellite missiles from an aircraft. The USSR, following the United States, also worked out options for dealing with American military satellites. The concept of a “satellite fighter” was chosen – a spacecraft that could maneuver in orbit, approach the desired object and undermine it.
The development of such technologies was stimulated by the American “Strategic Defense Initiative” or otherwise Reagan’s “Star Wars” program. In the late 1980s, the USSR conducted a series of tests to launch anti-satellite missiles from a MiG-31 fighter jet. The matter did not come to the real destruction of the apparatus, although the experiment was recognized as successful.
China in 2007 and India in 2019 successfully tested their anti-satellite missiles, shooting down old satellites. The rockets were launched from the ground in order to meet the target at the desired point of the orbit at the time calculated by the ballisticians. On November 15, 2021, Russia proved that it is quite capable of these military technologies. Space forces shot down an inoperative vehicle launched in 1982 in orbit. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has not yet announced which system was used in this case.
Political scientist Yevgeny Satanovsky wrote about the military significance of this event in his Telegram channel “Armageddonych”. According to him, “Russia has substantively demonstrated that it can shoot down the satellites of a potential enemy.”
In his opinion, in the United States, “the war in outer space is being practiced with might and main.” Under these conditions, the duty of the Russian military is “to master technologies of this kind and demonstrate it in such a way that no one even has any doubts that Russia can take anyone and anything out of orbit, so there is no need to experiment with it in this area.”
Satanovsky defined the military-political significance of the launch of an anti-satellite missile as follows: “This has been demonstrated. And, it is not excluded, it will further push back the threat of a war against us, in which there will be no winners. Because any country that embarks on an adventure of this kind, including the United States, will be destroyed, regardless of whether it strikes us first or not. “
According to him, “the ability to remove any structure that may be trying to hang over Russian territory, hoping that it will give a gain in time, or some other advantage, is very important.”
“And it is even more important that those who might have such an idea know about it,” the political scientist wrote. – It cools hotheads exceptionally well and reduces the readiness for military adventures to a minimum – including because people who are ready to unleash wars are not ready to endure in them not only defeat, but even just damage in manpower and equipment ” …
According to Satanovsky, “the extremely nervous and inadequate reaction of the American leadership” to the launch of a Russian anti-satellite missile “testifies that what is happening upset them, and strongly.” “It is clear that the very fact that the Russian military can also hit space targets upset the American leadership to the extreme. But who promised that it would be easy for them? Let them put up with it now … “, the political scientist concluded.
