In mid-February 2024, United States intelligence identified that Russia was developing a non-operational, space-based nuclear anti-satellite capability, a claim Moscow dismissed as a fabrication. Following this, Russia vetoed an April 2024 UN Security Council resolution aimed at upholding the 1967 Outer Space Treaty’s prohibition on orbital nuclear weapons, while a counter-resolution from Russia seeking a broader ban on placing any type of weapons in space also failed to pass. It showed, in something close to real time, that the next nuclear crisis could originate in a domain most arms control diplomacy still treats as a footnote.

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Qurat-Ul-Ain Shabbir is a PhD scholar at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, and currently serves as a research officer at the Centre for International Strategic Studies AJK.