Draft:Archive/2024/Space fleet academy/Undergraduate education/How do you prevent an interstellar war?

How do you prevent an interstellar war?
From the perspective of a chess player interstellar war may make some sense: The distance to another inhabited planet is likely to be thousands of lightyears and so far no technology is foreseeable that would shorten the travel time to less than at least the same amount of years. Weapons that can harm planets over a distance are numerous, however. The problem is obviously similar to that of the threat of nuclear weapons and nuclear disarmament.


 * Describe and analyze the differences to planetary nuclear disarmament.
 * Explain how the differences affect the situation and possible responses to the problem.
 * Analyze motivations:
 * Analyze the logic for the motivations of a preemptive strike. Evolution favors predators.
 * Analyze scenarios for counter strikes from interplanetary or interstellar civilizations or their allies.
 * Analyze the logic for the motivation to avoid a preemptive strike.
 * Analyze the logic for interstellar nuclear disarmament.
 * Describe your solution to interstellar nuclear disarmament with specific regard to the differences to planetary nuclear disarmament, especially the long travel time for any information from a remote planet.