Seems like this assumes that Superpower B is willing to do a preemptive nuclear strike on Superpower A even if Superpower A isn’t threatening Superpower B’s Earth population at all and the only threat is that they might steal space resources. I think in that situation, a preemptive nuclear strike would be considered a huge escalation, most possible Superpower B’s would likely be unwilling to do it, and most possible Superpower A’s would be unlikely to consider the threat of doing so to be credible (and would be likely to call the bluff for that reason).
In this case, the problem isn’t that superpower A is gaining an unfair fraction of resources, it’s that gaining enough of them would (presumably) allow them to assert a DSA over superpower B, threatening what B already owns. Analagously, it makes sense to precommit to nuking an offensive realist that’s attempting to build ICBM defenses, because it signals that they are aiming to disempower you in the future. You also wouldn’t necessarily need to escalate to the civilian population as a deterrent right away: instead, you could just focus on disabling the defensive infrastructure while it’s being built, only escalating further if A undermines your efforts (such as by building their defensive systems next to civilians).
Any plan of this sort would be very difficult to enforce with humans because of private information and commitment problems, but there are probably technical solutions for AIs to verifiably prove their motivations and commitments (ex: co-design).
Seems like this assumes that Superpower B is willing to do a preemptive nuclear strike on Superpower A even if Superpower A isn’t threatening Superpower B’s Earth population at all and the only threat is that they might steal space resources. I think in that situation, a preemptive nuclear strike would be considered a huge escalation, most possible Superpower B’s would likely be unwilling to do it, and most possible Superpower A’s would be unlikely to consider the threat of doing so to be credible (and would be likely to call the bluff for that reason).
In this case, the problem isn’t that superpower A is gaining an unfair fraction of resources, it’s that gaining enough of them would (presumably) allow them to assert a DSA over superpower B, threatening what B already owns. Analagously, it makes sense to precommit to nuking an offensive realist that’s attempting to build ICBM defenses, because it signals that they are aiming to disempower you in the future. You also wouldn’t necessarily need to escalate to the civilian population as a deterrent right away: instead, you could just focus on disabling the defensive infrastructure while it’s being built, only escalating further if A undermines your efforts (such as by building their defensive systems next to civilians).
Any plan of this sort would be very difficult to enforce with humans because of private information and commitment problems, but there are probably technical solutions for AIs to verifiably prove their motivations and commitments (ex: co-design).