What would happen if some country decided to put an atomic bomb into an orbit, not with intention to attack somebody now, but potentially later if there was a need to do so?
How would the world react?
Would the original launch be counted as an attack (considering that picking a specific orbit for your device limits your future target choice)?
The principle is, it’s considered insanely aggressive, which is why there is an important treaty prohibiting it. Weapons of mass destruction are not launched “just in case”. Why not station a bunch of ballistic-missile submarines right off your coast while we are at it, not with intention to attack you now, but potentially later?
Welcome to the Cuban Missile Crisis mark 2. Sure there is a treaty prohibiting such an act. But like any treaty there isn’t a clear cut mechanism for managing a breach. Fierce debate in the UN security council, motion vetoed by the country that put the weapon up. Easy to predict that side.
It is counted as an attack if you want to count it as one. Of course nobody will, as escalating things to that level gets serious really fast.
It could simply mean the end of the treaty, and the other players would feel free to launch their own weapons. The obvious problem with a known weapon in orbit is that it very vulnerable. A killer sat could be launched by another country and it could navigate its way to right next to the weapon. This becomes white knuckled brinkmanship. Which is why I liken it to the Cuban crisis.
Nobody is likely to announce that a sat is a weapon. So it all comes down to intelligence, accusations and denial.
If the killer sat is used to destroy the weapon it all gets messy, but very much a matter of accusation and denial. “That wasn’t a nuke, you destroyed a peaceful comsat!”. “Bollocks it was peaceful. It was a nuke!” “Wasn’t!” “Was!” “Wasn’t”. “You smell!” “Your mother wears army boots!”
Like just about every situation it comes down to what each player is prepared to lose. When it comes to nukes, you have bet the farm, and you are hoping the deck isn’t loaded. You need the other guy to fold, and nobody ever gets to show their cards, otherwise you can be sure nothing will go well.
In all, such a launch is only every likely to happen if the player decides it is part of a longer game plan. The nuke won’t be the point of the exercise. The chaos that follows may well be. But as they say in the classics “Do you feel lucky?”
It does, but not drastically. One would assume the weapon has a reasonable fuel reserve and can navigate. Changing orbit takes a bit of time, the faster you do it the more fuel you use. It wouldn’t be hard to provide enough cross range capability and an appropriate orbit that most of the globe is in range, just not on every orbit. An orbit change would be watched with great concern. At a time of heightened tension it would be very very provocative if the orbit brought the sat in range within a few orbits. That would be getting you very close to declaring a hostile act. Rather why you would have a killer sat shadowing it.
[Moderating]
“How much fuel would you need to change orbits to hit a target of choice” is a factual question. “How would the world react” is not. Since the OP is interested in the latter rather than the former, this question is not a good fit for GQ. IMHO, I guess?
They already are. Albeit most SSBNs can hit whatever targets they need to without leaving the dock.
For the OP, the Outer Space Treaty prohibits such, for the time being. Without going through the list, most of the countries that could orbit a nuclear weapon, are signatories to the Treaty.
To borrow themes from half of the James Bond films, what if a wealthy individual commissioned and orbited a nuclear weapon? Are they bound by any laws prohibiting either action?
It would be pointless from a military standpoint. You protect your nuclear assets by hiding them or protecting them in impregnable silos. You don’t put them in a fragile spacecraft where anybody with a pair of good binoculars can see them.
In the United States, you’re going to want to look at Title 42 of the United States Code, Chapter 23. The short answer is, No, for your hypothetical tycoon, unless s/he gets a license from the Department of Energy. Section 2122 of Title 42, is pretty clear:
It shall be unlawful, except as provided in section 2121 of this title, for any person, inside or outside of the United States, to knowingly participate in the development of, manufacture, produce, transfer, acquire, receive, possess, import, export, or use, or possess and threaten to use, any atomic weapon.
Does this include non-US citizens? Does it mean US pledges to actively pursue such people, even in another countries? Or just to arrest them if they’ve traveled to USA?
Jurisdiction is, I think, covered in the next subsection. The '64 Act is pretty long. I just quoted subsection A to give the gist.
Sounds like the OP is describing FOBS (fractional-orbital-bombardment-system), where a satellite carries a nuke and loiters in space indefinitely, orbiting the Earth in endless circles waiting for the strike order (unless I misunderstand FOBS.)
The wiki goes into much more detail, but basically, a FOBS payload is in orbit, but the orbit is low enough (100-125 miles) that the payload would reenter within only a few orbits. Typically, the payload would fire retro rockets after a fraction of one orbit, hence the name. The orbit could be oriented nearly any which way. Over the South Pole was a popular theoretical means for avoiding NATO and NORAD early warning radars.
No reason the payload couldn’t be boosted higher, of course, but doing so removes one advantage of FOBS, the payload’s ‘low’ altitude means it could get closer to an early warning radar before being detected. Also, the energetics of even a low altitude FOBS were much less favorable than a typical ICBM path, causing the payload to be shrunk by 1/2 to 2/3. Boosting higher would cut the available payload even more.
But, if you wanted to sneak below a 60s long range radar, which was looking for something 800-1200 miles above the North Pole, FOBS was a decent way to do it.
“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours. There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again…” - President John F. Kennedy, Rice University, Sept. 12, 1962
So you’re saying nobody would suspect a thing. Eeeexclent.