As a tourist I tried to talk to one and was basically ignored

A few days later I again tried to talk to one and was essentially told they didn’t care

I gave up after that

Yeah, it seems a simple enough test

“Can you replace the object with an inert rock of the same mass, and expect basically no significant difference in trajectory in the next 6 months?”

If yes, you’re in orbit and therefore space, otherwise your vehicle is relying on either lift or buoyancy and is therefore not in space

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?

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

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

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

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

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”

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