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Notes -
It’s ridiculous to assume the US military hasn’t fully prepared for the possibility of kesslerization given it’s been theorized as a warfare tactic for almost 50 years. In any case, I imagine both Russia and China would be extremely reluctant to use it given how much damage it would do to either side’s allies all over the world. The destruction of high orbit satellites is far from assured. The speed of it is also unclear and is actually pretty slow iirc in a lot of models.
Good point about the speed at which it would happen - I didn't consider that it could only amount to a "debris threshold passed now leads to inescapable exponential growth that will reach the point that no sats survive for long in 10 years" scenario.
I do however doubt that either of Russia and China would be particularly concerned about the damage loss of international space capabilities would do to their remaining allies (Google Maps? Degradation of weather forecasts? Loss of landsat-type commercial imagery?) if they are in an existential-ish struggle against the US. All of those sound to me like they would be minor relative to the effects of disturbances to the financial system and supply chains such a war would impose on everyone either way.
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