War in space

On 11/26/05, Dan Wylie-Sears wrote:
(...)
> Seems as though the nuclear option is pretty easy: put a lump of
> something on a collision trajectory, too big for the meteoroid
> sheilding to deal with. There are other ways, but once you've got
> one, more don't make much difference.
(...)

Of course this option is interesting only for people wanting to commit
genocide for some reason or other. Even though, it may not be so easy
to get a nuke (or a kinetic weapon, also a viable alternative in
space) so close to the colony before it is detected and destroyed. (By
missiles or by death rays, which by the way may be not so difficult to
produce by simply concentrating sunlight over the target using an
array of mirrors.)

An enemy interested in *conquering* the habitat, though, will more
likely want to get some troop deploy vehicles in contact with the
outer hull, so that the troops can drill in and takeover the colony by
rather conventional urban warfare techniques. Humongous, country-sized
colonies, on the other hand, may require the deploy of tanks and war
planes...