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zeeblecroid t1_it4x54u wrote

Reply to comment by aecarol1 in China looked at putting a monitoring satellite in retrograde geostationary orbit via the moon by OkOrdinary5299

> The idea is that a nation that did not depend on geosynchronous orbit could "level the playing field" against a nation that did make use of that.

The Venn diagram of "countries that don't need geosynchronous orbit" and "countries capable of launching spacecraft" contains no overlap whatsoever, even before getting into the fact that a country which took out the planet's geosynch satellite network wouldn't level the playing field as much as get leveled by everyone else on it.

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audigex t1_it530fj wrote

That’s almost certainly true - but that’s only one angle on the original theory

The other angle is that a country which believes it’s adversary would be more disadvantaged by removing satellites, may choose to do so, again to level the playing field

Imagine you went to war, and both you and your enemy have an Air Force, but you can somehow stop all aircraft flying in the conflict zone. If their Air Force is much stronger than yours, you may choose to forego your Air Force in exchange for the greater prize of denying your enemy theirs

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Bluemofia t1_it5fclp wrote

What you're suggesting isn't something trivially done like magically temporarily stop all aircraft flying for a strategic leveling. It's more akin to permanently destroying Geostationary orbit functionally forever.

This is more like the Matrix's "Let's blot out the Sun forever to get an advantage against the Machines" level decision. Maybe useful for this one battle, but then even if you win, you are worse off than just flat out losing conventionally.

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audigex t1_it5fvml wrote

It is, but there’s always the possibility that a country finds itself in an existential war

If they believe this decision could be a factor in the life and death of themselves and their people/families etc then it’s not beyond question that they do it, on the basis of “if we don’t do it, we definitely die, if we do it, we probably die, let’s worry about the consequences later, if we don’t die”

They don’t have to use this weapon, even - but if you have it you can decide whether or not to use it. If you don’t have it, you can’t.

I very much doubt it would ever be used - I generally agree that any country with the ability to develop and deploy it, is probably advanced enough that they don’t really feel that they need it… but that won’t necessarily stop someone developing it “just in case”

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Bluemofia t1_it5hi5u wrote

It's Mutually Assured Destruction lite. Sure, Kessler Syndrome in GEO is less instantly lethal, but the point about MAD isn't for half-measures. You go big or you go home.

If you suffer an existential threat, you don't merely inconvenince future generations by making weather satellites more inconvenient. You threaten to kill everyone in nuclear hellfire to prevent existential threats.

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audigex t1_it5ih44 wrote

But if you haven’t yet reached nuclear hellfire, perhaps you do this as a statement while pointing out that it’s a symbol of your willingness to go nuclear if necessary

Overall the cost of this weapon would be pretty low, I’m just saying that I can see why a country might want it in their back pocket

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Bluemofia t1_it5ldru wrote

You are either facing an existential threat, or you aren't. MAD isn't about winning, it's about making everyone, including yourself, lose.

If you aren't facing an existential threat, you don't destroy something valuable to neutral and allied nations permanently just to get some temporary advantage or "to show you are serious". Destroying common resources permanently only pisses off others unrelated to the conflict and is guaranteed to escalate the conflict and push it closer towards an actual existential threat, making it more likely for everyone to all lose under MAD instead of simply threatening to push the button to get the enemy to back off.

If you are facing an existential threat, MAD with nukes is the best option. You don't need a "symbol of your willingness to go nuclear". You just show off your nukes, and then show a red button and threaten to press it. No half-steps, especially permanent half-steps like Kessler Syndrome GEO, because that just pisses people off and makes it more likely that you have to press the button, which you don't want to anyways because you will still die.

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audigex t1_it5mcof wrote

You can be facing an existential threat without yet being at war

Again, see the USSR response to Able Archer - they believed that NATO was escalating to nuclear war, but they didn't immediately mash the nuclear button

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Bluemofia t1_it5xtwh wrote

How is that an existential threat? No massive waves of nukes were fired out of their silos, no bombers entering Soviet airspace, no invasion crossed the borders. Impending threats yes, but not like they had their territory violated.

(EDIT: Misread it. Regardless, the USSR perceived an existential threat by NATO, and responded by threatening existential defeat for NATO by readying their nuclear weapons for launch. They didn't want to actually fire them until they have confirmation of nuclear war, and this is behaving in a manner consistent with MAD.)

Even if the USSR interpreted the malfunctioning early warning systems as an actual nuclear attack, and thus existential defeat is imminent, and behaved in your scenario by Kessler Syndroming GEO as a "symbol of their willingness to go nuclear" (pretend for a moment that Kessler Syndroming GEO is actually viable in the 80s), only find out that this was due to technical glitches and aggressive drills, what they would have done was escalate the scenario by destroying NATO assets, increasing the likelihood of leading to an actual nuclear war, which will be the lose condition for everyone.

What the USSR did in reality in response to believing that NATO was escalating to a first strike nuclear launch was more in line with the usual MAD response. They readied their nuclear arsenal (knowing that NATO would realize what they are doing), and prepared to fire back in the event of a nuclear strike.

Again, no one wants to activate MAD. It's purpose is that once a nation acknowledges existential defeat, it has the option to bring everyone else to hell with it in the hope that the threat of doing so is enough to avoid existential defeat in the first place.

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chadenright t1_it5rmux wrote

This is essentially boiling down to the logic of mutually assured destruction. A reasonable party would rather not see his country get turned into a glass crater because he launched a first strike. But there's always the danger of some nutjob Putin or Kim who decides that having another five years in office is more important to them than the lives of every man, woman and child on earth.

Of course, what do they care? If they lose, they won't live long enough to see it, while if they win, sure the world is wrecked, but hey, they survived and kept hold of power, and that's the really important thing.

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audigex t1_it5t7l8 wrote

It's similar logic to MAD, but a clear step down

But in any case, MAD never stopped countries from wanting nukes, why would it stop anyone from wanting this?

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dan_dares t1_it6frrt wrote

Every country on the planet would be pissed at the one who launched that.

everyone who uses GPS in their car, or company that uses GPS time stamps (google for one)

GPS has literally become a mission-critical piece of human life.

(and by GPS i'm referring to all the positioning systems, not just the American system, they would all be wiped out)

Good analogy btw.

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zeeblecroid t1_it5c0pe wrote

Nobody - not even the Inscrutable Unfettered Evil Yellow Peril - is going to wipe out the entire planet's telecommunications, including their own, in an attempt to "level the playing field" against the United States. The scenario is entirely ridiculous.

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audigex t1_it5g83i wrote

There are numerous countries who have enough nukes to wipe out the majority of the world’s population, weapons that exist solely for retribution if they’re already dead… this satellite is several steps below that

If they consider the conflict to be an existential war (a fight for their lives and country’s existence), why would they care what happens in future? If they don’t do it, they stop existing and don’t give a shit. If they do, then maybe it’s a problem to worry about later, if they even live that long

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zeeblecroid t1_it5irln wrote

Handwringy what-ifs over applying the conduct of genocidal superpower wars to other situations is silly.

If things got to that point, nothing they could do would confer any advantages because the nukes would be flying anyway. If things didn't get to that point, scenarios like "how about we destroy global telecommunications and meteorology, because that totally won't completely screw us too" aren't going to come up.

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audigex t1_it5iygr wrote

I don’t see why we would assume the nukes would be flying - nuclear warfare involves various levels of escalation (See: Able Archer or the Cuban Missile Crisis), this could feasibly be one of them

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zeeblecroid t1_it5k4s2 wrote

You already said the scenario is a "we stop existing or they stop existing" war between superpowers. If you think that wouldn't go nuclear I don't know what to tell you.

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drewbagel423 t1_it5gisl wrote

You really think that if we were (actively) at war with Russia right now that Putin wouldn't strongly consider doing this?

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zeeblecroid t1_it5i5tm wrote

I know that We^TM are always intrinsically sane and They^TM are always intrinsically not, but no, Russia would not destroy most of its capability to communicate internally in the event of a war with the west because that would simply hasten their already-assured defeat.

China definitely isn't going to do it out of the blue like people panicking over this story seem to assume.

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smithsp86 t1_it5vh88 wrote

War is a zero sum game. As long as your opponent is more dependent on those orbits than you are it is a net benefit to make them unusable.

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