why acknowledgement of capability limits strategic options

if a country acknowledges certain information, then that restricts how a country is able to act during different situations, 

if a country knows that self replicating nano machines exist, 

but denies that knowledge, 

then that means that country knows that earth is relatively safe against large asteroid impacts 

and knows that different asteroid protection schemes are unnecessary, 

but country could still publicly say that asteroid protection is necessary and because of that use different schemes to send military assets or civilian assets with military capability to space in order to seemingly protect against asteroids 

but if a country would acknowledge existance of self replicating nano machines, 

then country has no reason to say that asteroid protection with military assets or civilian assets are necessary 

and country is hindered strategically