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Right, I think China would just build more nuclear weapons. Of course, some of this depends on production. I don't know how quickly China can produce nuclear missiles. The US probably can't make very many Ground-Based Interceptors, but it might be able to try to steal a lap by procuring thousands of Standards quickly.
Of course, the winning move for the US might simply be to bring back SDI and Brilliant Pebbles. Once Starship gets going the cost to orbit will be dramatically reduced, the interceptors probably won't weigh all that much, and the guidance and kill vehicle problems have already been ~sorted out.
I think it would still be very foolish to gamble with a complex system like this working 100% of the time, but if you model the US as being unwilling to tolerate a rival AGI cluster, that might become their priority in order to ensure they could strike with (more) impunity. And even if you assess that it is possible to overwhelm such a system, it raises the costs for an attacking power by ensuring they have to commit much more of their nuclear arsenal.
Nuclear missile production is just a standard industrial task, the Soviet Union could crank out thousands of big MIRVs with 1980s technology. I understand that China is somewhat rate-limited on enrichment, they don't have these huge cold-war enrichment complexes that produced huge arsenals back in the day. But how hard is it to make the machinery to produce plutonium?
Furthermore, would nukes in space clear out Brilliant Pebbles? There were rumours about Russia already deploying nuclear weapons into space sometime ago, the Chinese might do the same thing. You could harden the satellites against the EMP but that would make them a lot bulkier to deploy.
Also, how do you deploy such a system without giving the game away? It invites a pre-emptive nuclear strike in the months and weeks before the system becomes fully operational. As you say, it seems like a very big gamble for missile defence.
Another potential chokepoint for China is high-end ICBM production. I don't know if we would beat them in an arms race if we ramped up manufacturing Standards – I just don't have strong knowledge on the subject either way.
Fortunately Starship can handle plenty of bulk. Even without, though, I don't think a single EMP can technically clear out all of Brilliant Pebbles because the missiles would be in orbit all around the world. But it seems like launching multiple would be effective enough that you'd want to harden it anyway.
But besides the SPACE NUKES, Russia has started working on sea-delivered nuclear weapons and their nuclear arsenal has always been considerably more frightening than China's – I suspect it would be harder to defend against them than China, at least in the near to medium future, although I could be wrong.
However I am not sure China would go to NUCLEAR WAR just because we deployed Brilliant Pebbles.
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