You know, I enjoy Turtledove’s books. But when all of civilization and human life is at stake in dealing with an alien race, I’m not really prepared to wager everything on what one (rather talented) sci-fi writer has proposed in one of his books - that they’ll be coming at us with muskets.
No, I say that we just STFU. The best possible strategy would be to switch everything to communications that DON’T get beamed into space...and, just before shutting off the last radio and TV signals, have a false scenario of a devastating nuclear war sent out...that the planet is completely irradiated, poisoned, etc., so that anyone wanting to come here will decide that it isn’t worth it.
He doesn’t suggest that we wager everything that we are on that. Nobody does. He is cautioning against assumptions made on, literally, no data at all- and I agree with that.
That said, prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Nice to bump into another Turtledove fan.