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zeeblecroid t1_it5c0pe wrote

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

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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