but, if war is imminent or has already broken out, blinding or destroying an enemy's reconnaissance capability is a good thing to do. Consider the 1991 Gulf War when our forces did the famous "Hail Mary" end-around maneuver. A single aerial or satellite image of the buildup would've destroyed the element of surprise, perhaps dooming the attack to failure with much higher casualties.
Over the years, we investigated many ASAT concepts and even tested one or two. The former Soviet Union actually fielded an operational ASAT system. To the best of my knowledge, it still exists but has not been tested for a long time. Russia has another operational ASAT capability that I can't talk about due to security classification concerns. It seems some people only mind weapons like that when we have them, not when the Russians or others have them. That just doesn't make any sense to me.
Current Events » in reply to It's very risky to knock out satellites belonging to a nuclear power. n/t
It would be an act of war...
The whole thread (26 posts)
- Satellite photos of Mideast air bases
- So just shoot the thing down.
- We don't have any anti-satellite weapons
- Not so fast there, pardner...
- Hiding in plain sight.
- It's a different world
- Not only the middle east exports terror
- So just shoot the thing down.