The biggest threat any nation in the long-term is the use of mass drivers against Earth. What I mean by mass drivers are the conventional drivers that have often talked about to send supplies from the moon and also propulsion drivers on asteroids that could impact a country. The latter is very scary because it would be very difficult if this came out of the blue for a country to figure out who sent it against it.
Using weapons like this is out of the range of the current space presence of countries today but it is something we have to be aware of.
Literally if a country had unchecked control of this ability and was so inclined it could rule the world. He could bomb all the major militarized countries back into the stone age. This is why any country who has a space presence must have the same capability. The only deterence to a hostile country doing this to another country would be the fact it could be done to them.
However, such a technology could also be a great temptation for many countries. Since there is no radioactivity involed the fear of a radioactivity in your counry you have conquered is removed.
To think that space would not become militarized in the conventional way nations are set up (free trade without any reform of political & economic institutions) is extremely dangerous.
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The biggest threat any nation in the long-term is the use of mass drivers against Earth. What I mean by mass drivers are the conventional drivers that have often talked about to send supplies from the moon and also propulsion drivers on asteroids that could impact a country. The latter is very scary because it would be very difficult if this came out of the blue for a country to figure out who sent it against it. Using weapons like this is out of the range of the current space presence of countries today but it is something we have to be aware of. Literally if a country had unchecked control of this ability and was so inclined it could rule the world. He could bomb all the major militarized countries back into the stone age. This is why any country who has a space presence must have the same capability. The only deterence to a hostile country doing this to another country would be the fact it could be done to them. However, such a technology could also be a great temptation for many countries. Since there is no radioactivity involed the fear of a radioactivity in your counry you have conquered is removed. To think that space would not become militarized in the conventional way nations are set up (free trade without any reform of political & economic institutions) is extremely dangerous.