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Wrong from beginning to end. Countermeasures like, for example, shooting first next time.

Shooting at space debris? Really?

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Nations have ways to retaliate if someone snubs their ambassador, or blocks their exports of chicken nuggets, but they are helpless if someone shoots down a $500 million satellite? I am boggled that you think some scrap of deniability will confer invulnerability.

"You intend to break your international trade agreements because we accidentally bumped one of your satellites? Are you on crack? You already got the insurance for that piece of crap anyway. We'll see you in court. Good luck explaining this one to the WTO."

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Nations will freely admit they are 'in the wrong' rather than swallow such assaults. Except they will naturally insist they are within their rights.

Could you find me some examples of countries freely admitting that they're breaking international law?

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I'm not so sure that demining is that easy. I think fear of big retaliation, coupled with diffuse and remote gain for running such large risks, is what deters such attacks for the most part.

Retalliation which would be more or less impossible in the satellite example.

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And do you hold that shooting down expensive satellites that belong to others isn't against the law? As opposed to an act of war similar to sinking a warship in international waters?

Oh, I wouldn't shoot it down. That would be illegal, and besides it's apprarently quite difficult to do even if you've got the equipement. One of my old satellites would just accidentally happen to drift into the orbit of yours, as happens from time to time in space. That's all.

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Originally Posted by Zichao

Oh, I wouldn't shoot it down. That would be illegal, and besides it's apprarently quite difficult to do even if you've got the equipement. One of my old satellites would just accidentally happen to drift into the orbit of yours, as happens from time to time in space. That's all.

By the third time it happend, even politicians would be catching on. The countermeasure might be anti-debris technology or one sort or another, or it might be the overt shooting of satellites of yours deemed possibly threatening to ours.

One can even imagine it happening that the anti-debris system would snag a satellite or two of yours. 'Oops. Sorry. Silly machine thought it was junk. Accidents happen.'

You keep saying 'retaliation would be impossible.' What you mean is you think that retaliation falls outside the norms of international culture in this instance. But norms evolve, and some will insist they were made to be broken, and you'll be sorry if you don't remember that 'not normative' and 'impossible' are very different things.

For an example of a nation retaliating by means outside all international law and norms, I might cite Pearl Harbor.

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By the third time it happend, even politicians would be catching on.

That'll look good to the electorate. "Yeah, we spent zillions of dollars of your money on a manifestly illegal weapons system that had little or no chance of being effective. And then we did it two more times just to make sure."

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The countermeasure might be anti-debris technology or one sort or another, or it might be the overt shooting of satellites of yours deemed possibly threatening to ours.

"... then we shot down a bunch of satellites belonging to a third party without providing any sort of justification. You'll be receiving a bill from their insurance company in a couple of weeks, should you survive that long. When the siren sounds you have three minutes to make it to your nearest shelter."

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One can even imagine it happening that the anti-debris system would snag a satellite or two of yours. 'Oops. Sorry. Silly machine thought it was junk. Accidents happen.'

If the alternative is foreign weapons in space, then that's a loss I'd be prepared to suffer.

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You keep saying 'retaliation would be impossible.' What you mean is you think that retaliation falls outside the norms of international culture in this instance. But norms evolve, and some will insist they were made to be broken, and you'll be sorry if you don't remember that 'not normative' and 'impossible' are very different things.

Well okay. Beep me when that happens.

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For an example of a nation retaliating by means outside all international law and norms, I might cite Pearl Harbor.

I'm not sure that was illegal. It was before the creation of the UN charter and the definition of the crime of agression. In any case, sure, countries break international law all the time, but they always pretend that it's actually on their side. No one ever just says "fuck international law".

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We don't need to get too excited about attacks from space if a $50 million missile can sink a multi-billion dollar aircraft carrier and. if it happens suddenly enough, most of the aircraft aboard the vessel.

Benjamin is exactly right:

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This is classic Pournelle "strategy of technology." When the enemy bases their power on a big investment in a particular system, they are very vulnerable to technology that negates that system.

Much of the impetus behind US war weapons construction comes not from the Defense Department, but from senators who have substantial military businesses in their state. I think we are seeing this in the stand-off between Airbus and Boeing in the long-bungled and long-delayed contract to replace the US Air Force B707-vintage aerial refueling tankers, which went into service starting in 1957.

As far as I can tell the winner is likely to be the company that has parts manufacture and assembly operations in the largest number of most influential states. The outcome will have almost nothing at all to do with what the US military actually requires.