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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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Why would the strongest states adhere to a treaty that limits their strength?

There's SALT, START and the test ban treaty as a tentative example. But most of that has broken down by now, along with the anti-ballistic missile treaty.

Another example would be the Washington Naval Treaty which set everyone's capital ship strength at a certain ratio to the British. The Japanese and Germans cheated and then WW2 happened, whereupon everyone left. It was a major failure. Similarly, the treaty on conventional forces in Europe has broken down.

My belief is that space is more like conventional military strength in that there's rough parity between attack and defence. The more warships you have, the better you are proportionately.

With nuclear weapons, it's easy to defend and hard to attack in strategic terms. Destroying the enemy's nuclear weapons in a first-strike is very difficult, they can hide them in various places. And the defending side's missiles can probably get through missile defense, that's still very cost-inefficient. So it's much harder to gain a decisive advantage such that you can really exploit your nuclear forces. Mutually Assured Destruction.

Arms control treaties make most sense for nuclear weapons, less sense for symmetrical weapons like capital ships or conventional forces that can attack and defend. Space is more like the latter. Nuclear treaties are already breaking down, so what chance is there for space?