[vdqtp3]

> an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario.

Most modern military planning considers it a foregone conclusion. Whether that's accurate or not is arguable, but approaching discussions of military spending from a perspective grounded in current planning is certainly reasonable.

[pjc50]

So .. ICBM nuclear exchange? Or are we suddenly expecting a large conventional war between nuclear powers in which both sides decide not to bother with them?

[defrost]

Military planners may believe it to be inevitable, the interesting question to chase is why they think that and who the aggressor would be and in response to what.

That aside, it would likely be unconvential and ground breaking in several respects, eg: likely the first conflict with a large initial space based element, each country wanting to blind the other, with each having large constellations of satellites.

Killing farout geostationary spy sats wouldn't be visible .. but fragging the entire LEO space with "sufficient shrapnel" to initiate a cascading sat failure should(?) make for an interesting global skyshow.