The defense angle us civilians are probably not seeing is important. One big advantage for example is they're hard to take down.
Let's say there's a war with China, one of the first things the PLA will do is take down any US government controlled satellites. The normal big ones you can shoot down but thousands of them that can be replaced within a day, not so much. The PLA would also be giving out their launch positions for retaliatory attacks.
Let's presume the PLA has effective radio and GPS jamming tech, one solution is to use cameras on satellites for positioning and laser as well as frequency hopping satellite radio comms. Small, easily replaceable constellation satellites are ideal.
in times of actual war, i doubt anyone in the military would care. The result is undesirable but there won't be any threat to life as a result, and there is always a chance the debris problem can be solved in the near future (just shoot it all down! lol)
The US military was able to stop using the U2 because they had imaging satellites for remote reconnaissance, nevermind that whole GPS thing. It would be a severe hit to their capabilities if space around Earth was made unusable.
Let's say there's a war with China, one of the first things the PLA will do is take down any US government controlled satellites. The normal big ones you can shoot down but thousands of them that can be replaced within a day, not so much. The PLA would also be giving out their launch positions for retaliatory attacks.
Let's presume the PLA has effective radio and GPS jamming tech, one solution is to use cameras on satellites for positioning and laser as well as frequency hopping satellite radio comms. Small, easily replaceable constellation satellites are ideal.