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U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

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Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#881

Post by anonu »

bxs24p wrote: post #858

The fact that this became a story at all is purely geopolitical in my opinion. Perhaps to do Blinkens up coming Beijing visit (which has since been canned). As far as I can tell the chinese dislike bad press like this. Having the balloon become a fiasco becomes a reason to cancel the trip. Can't exactly tell the why's but this is my guess.

100%. If the balloon was a threat, why wasn't it shot down over Alaska? Or earlier on it's trip over the continental US. There was no threat... Here's an opportunity to drum up a lot of FUD and use it as a geopolitical lever.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#882

Post by misja111 »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #171
cududa wrote: post #25

I had seen reports that the balloon was the length of 3-4 school busses but it appears that was misreported and just repeated. The PAYLOAD was the length of 3-4 school busses. I haven’t been following this much until today/ vaguely aware as an amusing background story. But, has anyone seen high res photos of the balloon or someone doing back of the envelope math on the size of the balloon portion? I ask simply becaus…

It looks like the large size is mostly just solar panels (I'm assuming that's what they were; they could have been 'sails' to help steer it) and their scaffolding. From some of the available photos there's two wings, each with eight panels. There's a tradeoff between the weight of the solar panels vs simply using batteries (though batteries don't like the cold, and solar panels do), so I think maybe they were hoping…

I don't know why you are downvoted but I agree with your point that the shooting down feels a bit like an overreaction.

For instance, the Pentagon has just reported that several Chinese balloons have been crossing US airspace in the recent years [1], also during Trump presidency. These were not shut down, they were not even reported at the time AFAIK.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/conservatives-blame-biden-ch...

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#883

Post by mlindner »

404mm wrote: post #382

I feel like the balloon takedown was seriously mishandled. Imo it should have been shot down right after it crossed our borders and before it started move over populated areas. That way there would be no surveillance and you could examine the payload. Now that it’s in the water, you may not even find it.

I disagree. The spy balloon was likely inspected shortly before it entered US territory and the military deemed it as something that was not critical and simply moved anything sensitive out of the way of the a balloon. Meanwhile they likely monitored the emissions of the balloon to do intelligence collecting of Chinese capabilities. The DoD said they were aware of the balloon shortly after it left China and were monitoring it even before it flew over Alaska.

The US probably gained more from this than China gained.

Meanwhile the general public and US media got very invigorated about it so helped stock public opinion against China in general which helps prevent more stealing of secrets to China but increasing the cautiousness of the general populace.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#884

Post by flohofwoe »

vegasea wrote: post #853
petemir wrote: post #839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which football? Real football or American football?

What is real football? I've heard of association football (shortened to soccer by the British), rugby football, Australian rules football, American football and Canadian football but I've never heard of real football.

The one where the "foot" hits the "ball", as opposed to the others where hands and an egg is involved.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#885

Post by hutzlibu »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #829
Justin_K wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya what if it uses cellular on a US sim? Are you going to jam all the cell spectrums?

Oh snap right, a US three letter agency telling a US mobile carrier to disable a US SIM sounds like an impossible feat. Well played, China!

Yes, it is a very high profile debate going on around here.

That means, there are competent people commenting, but they get drown in other comments.

People forget way too often, that you don't need to have an opinion on everything, or worse, share that opinion everywhere.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#886

Post by kgwgk »

misja111 wrote: post #878
ipqk wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how big this particular one is, but high altitude balloons get really large because of the low pressure. For example, I could find that this ballon reaches 200ft diameter at 100,000 feet. https://remus.jpl.nasa.gov/balloon.htm

But weather balloons are typically much smaller. See e.g. https://www.stratoflights.com/en/shop/weather-balloon-3000/ , this is the largest one they sell and it has a bursting diameter of 45ft

I’m pretty sure that they had a budget higher than $700 and wanted it to carry more than 3kg of payload.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#887

Post by ryaniscool »

norcon4 wrote: post #591
ineedasername wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is not simply rolled out as a boogeyman. Apart from any of their ambitions, at minimum the worlds reliance on them for various resources and manufacturing capacity almost exclusively has, in the last 2.5 years, been revealed as an extreme flaw and risk to global economic stability when that resource and manufacturing pipeline is disrupted. That is, at a bare minimum, a serious problem that will take years to so…

Why are you worried about the world relying on China? The global economy was actually stabilized by China's zero-covid policy for the past few years because although lockdowns were disruptive, the death and disability of workers is an even greater threat. We now live in an even more unstable time now that China has abandoned this policy since the international community has decided to embrace living with covid. And G…

It sounds like you are falling victim to propaganda from the other side.

Profiling and racism by police in America is obviously a problem. Unfortunately, we don't have a nuanced view of policing in China because any criticism of laws and policing by Chinese press is illegal because no freedom of press. The stories we do hear don't paint a rosy picture. A couple of examples are death sentences for drug crimes and organ harvesting.

To your point about "USA asian tributary states under USA hegemony". First, this sounds like Chinese propaganda. Let's assume you're right for the sake of argument. All of those countries you list have free or low-cost healthcare while American society pours money into weapons and military research. They don't pay the USA any kind of tax tribute that I'm aware of. Their economies have flourished and they have kept their own culture. They set their own laws and manage their own governments. It's not clear to me what we get out of the arrangement.

From my point of view, we are gearing up to defend Taiwan if necessary. That is all. I haven't heard anyone mention anything else in the press. Can you explain to me why defending a sovereign country that has existed as long as China would make us guilty of genocide?

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#888

Post by qwezxcrty »

UltraViolence wrote: post #722

I'm very surprised that China would take the risk of fueling a political firestorm when these balloons are only marginally more effective than the satellites they already have. These intrusions are clearly a violation of our airspace and could even be considered an act of war. What the hell was Xi thinking? Is he trying to communicate that China can do whatever it wants with impunity? Did he even authorize this fligh…

Or what if, it's not a spy balloon and a genuine mistake?

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#889

Post by sumedh »

Justin_K wrote: post #785
pageandrew wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its very possible that they could jam the radio frequencies the balloon uses. "Hacking the comms link", not so much, but neutering its ability to phone home... very possible.

Ya what if it uses cellular on a US sim? Are you going to jam all the cell spectrums?

Does the cellular network even work at that altitude?

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#890

Post by hutzlibu »

cuteboy19 wrote: post #731
landemva wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McCarthy like Pelosi looks to visit Taiwan because of playground pride. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-30/china-urg... USA is being baited into war on multiple fronts.

I mean it's game theory. Once you start allowing such things you simply have to always allow them. If you allow China to bully you into not visiting Taiwan, they will start bullying you into something else. Neither side will actually do war so it makes sense not to fold

Ah yes, but like others have pointed out, China did in fact allow US ballons over their territory.

(googles loon project)

"Neither side will actually do war so it makes sense not to fold"

And neither side wants war with each other, but if either side is pushed more and more into it from internal and external pressure, than I sadly would not rule out that possibility.

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