Colder Wars, By Gwern

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 - Codahttps://gwern.net/colder-war Get full access to Askwho Casts AI at askwhocastsai.substack.com/subscribe