Isn't that because the US called waterboarding "enhanced interrogation" instead of torture, and therefore could claim that they were following the letter of the law?
In any case, the "legally speaking" was intended to mean "it can still happen, but there's probably going to be a lot of fallout if someone finds out".
>The big benefit would be that a target can be wiped off the map without a giant "LOOK WE DID IT" flag immediately beforehand.
That's an interesting point. Only way I can think of to figure out whose nuke it is is to extrapolate the reentry vehicles' trajectory backwards and see what satellites are in possible source orbits. That's not going to be very accurate, I think. Wonder if there is a better defense against that.
>Space debris follows a predictable track once spotted and isn't deliberately constructed to be hard to find with visual/radar observation. This is a bit like saying stealth bombers are impossible because we can easily spot airliners.
Good point. I had considered the possibility of stealth tech, but I guess I didn't really think that hard about what it meant until I read that analogy.
Signing treaties didn't stop us from waterboarding torture.
> Even if the military kept things under wraps, I'm not so sure that stationing nukes in orbit would provide a significant advantage, as you would only be able to strike a particular target when it rotates under your orbit, which means you can hit a target only twice a day at fairly specific times, while ICBMs can be launched at any time.
The big benefit would be that a target can be wiped off the map without a giant "LOOK WE DID IT" flag immediately beforehand.
> We already track more than half a million pieces of space debris, with 20,000 of those larger than a softball ([2]), so I'd imagine a "secret" satellite wouldn't stay secret for long.
Space debris follows a predictable track once spotted and isn't deliberately constructed to be hard to find with visual/radar observation. This is a bit like saying stealth bombers are impossible because we can easily spot airliners.