In this post, Gwern argues that realistic interstellar warfare would be less like romantic space-navy fiction and more like an even colder, more unstable version of nuclear first-strike logic. Starting from Ender’s Game and Cold War doctrine, he suggests that vast distances, three-dimensional attack routes, asteroid-scale weapons, and weak attribution could make space conflict terrifyingly offense-dominant, with mutually assured destruction harder to sustain than on Earth.

* 00:00 - Introduction

* 00:23 - First-Strike

* 01:25 - Why Strike First?

* 04:39 - Fun Space Warfare

* 07:44 - Grim Space Warfare

* 13:05 - Easy Warfare

* 19:55 - Defense

* 20:55 - Counter-Point: Nowhere to Hide

* 23:50 - Nuclear & Space First-Strikes

* 25:58 - Second-Strike

* 26:55 - Accountability

* 28:05 - Deceiving MAD

* 28:50 - Coda

https://gwern.net/colder-war

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