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Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

Yes, striking a data center in the US would also be an act of war. But deterrence isn't very effective against hybrid or "gray zone" warfare. Let's say a drone swarm launched from a random shipping container destroys an Amazon data center in Virginia. US intelligence analysts determine with 80% confidence that the attack was carried out by a terrorist group sponsored by Russia. Would that justify kinetic retaliation against a nuclear power?

There is value in hardening critical data centers. Whether that means placing them in orbit or underground or equipping them with air defenses remains to be seen.

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Oh I'm pretty sure if there was a terrorist attack sponsored by a state in the USA there would 100% be a retaliation strike of some massive orders of magnitude of higher cost - I doubt it would be tit-for-tat, but more like sinking a navy/submarines/airforce, or something in the likes of that.

I'm not saying there's no value in hardening data centers (which I'm assuming many already are against fires/earthquakes...), but their location and distribution are as safe as they can be - as in, any attack on them would probably be a declaration of war.

In space you will always have to deal with deniability.

You're really missing the point. Retaliation is uncertain if the USA can't reliably determine which state sponsored a terrorist attack. Russia in particular has gotten fairly good at this lately. We think they have sponsored a series of arsons and assassinations in other NATO / EU countries but so far there's no hard evidence that would stand up in a criminal court (or at least nothing publicly released). They seem to be trying to stay just under the threshold that would trigger NATO Article 5.

Kinetic attacks against satellites would be less deniable. All major launches and orbiting objects are tracked so it would generally be possible to trace any weapon back to a specific country.

> if there was a terrorist attack sponsored by a state in the USA there would 100% be a retaliation strike

How do you know that this has not happened yet?

How many NATO forests had burnt to a crisp in the last two years. How many Americans lose their homes or their lives on those? Why so many disposable local idiots wake up some day with the same idea to provoke a wildfire near their city just now? Or to riot in Europe just now?

Any response from USA or Europe yet?

All that they need is to detect, isolate and groom a local moron from the other coin of the planet, And if is caught, is not their problem.

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