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There are a litany of problems with your thinking. 1) we brought nato next door to putin in Ukraine. That’s why there’s a war. Go read more about this if you a

There are a litany of problems with your thinking. 1) we brought nato next door to putin in Ukraine. That’s why there’s a war. Go read more about this if you aren’t sure why the war is happening. It’s quite interesting. 2) it’s impossible to keep some capability like that secret. Do you know how the Soviet Union got nukes in the first place? They ‘borrowed’ the technology from the USA. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_spies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_spies There is no reason to believe the USA could keep this info secret. And every reason to believe it would result in Russia / China finding out and then doing whatever is necessary to counter it = probably nukes in space if that’s their only option. The main problem with all this, and why MAD probably still applies, is that even if one single thermonuclear weapon gets though, you’re totally screwed.

AtlasBarfed 3y ago
The counterargument to "NATO started it" is that Russia has been openly declaring that they will invade surrounding nations to reestablish the USSR borders, particularly to restore the historical gap defense. Russia had a Russian-aligned puppet, then we helped overthrow and install a Ukraine-aligned government. It could have continued functioning as a buffer state, but then Russia seized Crimea. The technology is probably an inevitability at this point. Smart rocks aren't rocket science, they just ride up on it. Likely all the major powers have the necessary missile guidance, and delta-v is ... just a small rocket. But it would be hard to hide the testing of such things, unless SpaceX signed up to sacrifice an old rocket for an interception test. What IS semi-exclusive to the US is the core economics of Starship. The strategic value of Starship militarily is quite substantial. It means rapid deployment of forces anywhere in the world, possibly with some armor capability, in an hour. It means moving previously economically infeasible amounts of hardware into orbit. It means practical dominance of low orbit for likely 50 years. So if ABM is the next frontier, the gauntlet is for these countries that will be dealing with progressively more extreme demographics and economic isolation to compete with American capability that, for once, delivers far superior capability for far superior economics. You'll be asking China and Russia to deliver miracle-level space program expansion, and then an ABM atop it. Remember, both of these countries have astronomically high corruption, in particular Russia. I'm not going to argue that some nukes getting through isn't a bad thing that should still keep MAD in place on the American side. No leader in America wants to go down as someone that lost a major city. But... nukes getting through might hit remote missile silos. A single nuke can take out a city, but not the entire USA. Not even Tsar Bomba is that strong. Yes warheads are retargetable, MIRV, and all that. It still remains that Russia is the one with the outright aggressive speeches detailing recapture of Soviet satellites in the eastern bloc, the one that has a litany of assassins killing Putin's enemies, the one using ghoulish human waves of shock troops composed of prisoners (how many are political) and non-Russian ethnic groups (racism). You're not talking to someone with rose goggles towards US foreign policy, but come on, Russia is being about as aggressor posture as they can be within a MAD umbrella. I'm not advocating ABM in space, I simply think that the publicly stated goals of Russia and China combined with forthcoming Starship maturation means it is inevitable.
- jonplackett 3y ago
  This is getting very complicated now (though I have to say I’m enjoying discussing it without shouting at each other. Go HN!) I guess my most basic point is, that an arms race just ends up wasting a tonne of effort and resources and each side ends up roughly where they were. Especially with nukes where it’s impossible to gain an absolute advantage. And especially when it’s well understood that both sides are really good at spying. Russia already has hypersonic missiles that don’t seem to be intercept-able anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to us this space-advantage for something way more useful than an arms race? The us and the west has the main problem of having fallen way behind in being able to actually manufacture stuff really well and really cheaply. Can we spend all that money getting good at that again instead please? Maybe we can manufacture stuff in orbit.
  - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
    The dream of moving humanity to an interplanetary one needs money, and alas the military is the most facile source of it. Yeah, it would be great if arms were redirected to climate change mitigation, or humanitarian ones like healthcare for all. But... those people at the top so love their game of thrones.
    - jonplackett 3y ago
      Sad but true. Tune in next century for the interplanetary wars!

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

The counterargument to "NATO started it" is that Russia has been openly declaring that they will invade surrounding nations to reestablish the USSR borders, particularly to restore the historical gap defense. Russia had a Russian-aligned puppet, then we helped overthrow and install a Ukraine-aligned government. It could have continued functioning as a buffer state, but then Russia seized Crimea. The technology is probably an inevitability at this point. Smart rocks aren't rocket science, they just ride up on it. Likely all the major powers have the necessary missile guidance, and delta-v is ... just a small rocket. But it would be hard to hide the testing of such things, unless SpaceX signed up to sacrifice an old rocket for an interception test. What IS semi-exclusive to the US is the core economics of Starship. The strategic value of Starship militarily is quite substantial. It means rapid deployment of forces anywhere in the world, possibly with some armor capability, in an hour. It means moving previously economically infeasible amounts of hardware into orbit. It means practical dominance of low orbit for likely 50 years. So if ABM is the next frontier, the gauntlet is for these countries that will be dealing with progressively more extreme demographics and economic isolation to compete with American capability that, for once, delivers far superior capability for far superior economics. You'll be asking China and Russia to deliver miracle-level space program expansion, and then an ABM atop it. Remember, both of these countries have astronomically high corruption, in particular Russia. I'm not going to argue that some nukes getting through isn't a bad thing that should still keep MAD in place on the American side. No leader in America wants to go down as someone that lost a major city. But... nukes getting through might hit remote missile silos. A single nuke can take out a city, but not the entire USA. Not even Tsar Bomba is that strong. Yes warheads are retargetable, MIRV, and all that. It still remains that Russia is the one with the outright aggressive speeches detailing recapture of Soviet satellites in the eastern bloc, the one that has a litany of assassins killing Putin's enemies, the one using ghoulish human waves of shock troops composed of prisoners (how many are political) and non-Russian ethnic groups (racism). You're not talking to someone with rose goggles towards US foreign policy, but come on, Russia is being about as aggressor posture as they can be within a MAD umbrella. I'm not advocating ABM in space, I simply think that the publicly stated goals of Russia and China combined with forthcoming Starship maturation means it is inevitable.

jonplackett 3y ago
This is getting very complicated now (though I have to say I’m enjoying discussing it without shouting at each other. Go HN!) I guess my most basic point is, that an arms race just ends up wasting a tonne of effort and resources and each side ends up roughly where they were. Especially with nukes where it’s impossible to gain an absolute advantage. And especially when it’s well understood that both sides are really good at spying. Russia already has hypersonic missiles that don’t seem to be intercept-able anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to us this space-advantage for something way more useful than an arms race? The us and the west has the main problem of having fallen way behind in being able to actually manufacture stuff really well and really cheaply. Can we spend all that money getting good at that again instead please? Maybe we can manufacture stuff in orbit.
- AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  The dream of moving humanity to an interplanetary one needs money, and alas the military is the most facile source of it. Yeah, it would be great if arms were redirected to climate change mitigation, or humanitarian ones like healthcare for all. But... those people at the top so love their game of thrones.
  - jonplackett 3y ago
    Sad but true. Tune in next century for the interplanetary wars!