Since we haven’t had a war against a peer in like 80 years, we have basically no idea what it’d look like, right? I mean, everybody has a bunch of satellites up there right now, and nobody wants to kick off Kessler syndrome. But if two sides with serious navies started fighting and everybody’s carriers were getting spotted by satellite, is it obvious that nobody would start running that calculation?
In any major near peer conflict the satellites will obviously be among the first casualties. The USA and China have been quietly engaging in an ASAT arms race for several years.
At some point the ICBM nuke exchange happens, as well.
This adds a sort of weird bit because, of course, it isn’t really clear why we’d care about carrier performance against China, if we assume it would be an ICBM war anyway.
Maybe a proxy war or some sort of limited thing could be envisioned… but it seems really risky. I hope we don’t do it obviously.
> nobody wants to kick off Kessler syndrome
Except the Trump administration, you mean.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/07/space-pollut...
Satellites require uplinks. You don't have to destroy anything in orbit if you can destroy the control station on the ground.
Plus if we can hack into it and force it into graveyard while expending all it's fuel that's obviously the opening move.