How can interplanetary war even take off?

[Eshanas]

Is it as simple as 'I have armed ships coming your  way and you can't stop them'? I mean, any interplanetary capable body is also capable of having a full sensor net and computing power to note, log, and track every satellite, spaceship, base, launch, receipt, and even tonnage of everything floating and flying out in space.  And attempting to mess with, or destroy, those nets would be an automatic declaration of war, yes?

And even then, any populated planet can just chuck missiles, railguns, coilguns, or lasers (on subs) against any orbiting fleet, there is a massive home advantage unless the attacker is focused on genocide or environmental destruction.

Would war be something much more...'coded'/'honorable'/'gentlemanly' then, sort of like the Flower Wars or the European Westphalian system? "Underhanded" tactics sometimes popped up but it was still more or less regulated.

And even then, there's still the issue of detection; would that just boil down to 'we can bring more mobile assets to bear'? - and then ultimately becomes an issue of production? Especially if reaction mass/fuel for speedy/convienent interplanetary travel is expensive. After all, there's little to nothing stopping one from just picking off a fleet as it cruises through space to your planet, even with antimatter beam cores, 1g acceleration and Brachistochrone trajectories, it's still a trip in the realm of days and weeks. 

I don't know, I keep prodding my head about this, and I can't find a sufficient answer. Even chucking in some 'hyperspace/warp' mumble jumble doesn't work well.

Is it analogous to modern naval warfare in a way as well - I mean, every great power or even middling power has radar and sat nets tracking every mobile asset of their adversaries - the Russians and Chinese probably have a damn good inkling of where every American or Euro surface ship is, and vice versa, and modern naval combat among peers is...well, more exists in the realm of books than anything else.

What do ya think? 

[BTGBullseye]

1 hour ago, Eshanas said:

mumble jumble

The term is "mumbo jumbo".

1 hour ago, Eshanas said:

What do ya think? 

I think you need to read r/HFY.