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In a hypothetical future war between major powers they would likely knock out each others' large satellites. So the combatants would have to make do with nano satellites for low resolution overhead imagery and low bandwidth communications. Nano satellites are small enough to be somewhat survivable, and losses can be easily replaced.

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Do you mean knock out by kinetic weapons? So would some sort of EMP get them all instead, get past any shielding?

It’s posaible to take out satellites with ground based high powered lasers or ballistic missile interceptors like the SM3

Could be kinetic weapons, directed energy, persistent jamming, maybe something else. It's hard to predict. EMP seems unlikely because emitting enough power to destroy satellites requires nuclear weapons and that would be a last resort, but anything is possible.

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