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If someone launched a nuke in space how would other nuclear powers react? I doubt they would assume "this is probably just an EMP and not a direct nuclear strike on our territory"
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> If someone launched a nuke in space how would other nuclear powers react?

We'd bitch and moan and then carry on as usual. Nobody is starting thermonuclear war over fried birds. Maybe someone gets tariffed.


If you had time to plan it, you'd probably want to put the warhead on a satellite launched by a normal satellite launcher. It'll look benign until you detonate it.

Yes. I assume this is why there's a treaty against stationing the weapons in orbit or on the moon etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty

I don't know how someone like me would even tell if this treaty is taken seriously. For example, going to space is really hard and has historically been somewhat unreliable at the best of times, which may mean that back in 1967 everyone was thinking "we don't even want a 1% chance that someone's failed launch to drop a 99%-usable warhead on a random location where some tiny country or organised crime group can find it".


Plot twist - someone has already thought about this and took measures of unimaginable scale...so that, no one, ever, wipes out, humanity, with nukes.

Can you do better than "measures"



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