If an agitator puts up a balloon and payload, one of which contains a potentially dangerous substance, and a nation in question shoots it down, thus releasing and activating that substance, who is responsible? And who does the public deem responsible? (I don't think this is realistic, just musing about other schemes that could be going on.)
Like floating a warhead over the US mainland? It would just count as a first strike regardless I imagine.
The bigger question to think about is the fear itself that led you to this question, the fear, the vulnerability and the anxiety you are feeling. Perhaps if americans weren't so frightened all the time there would be less wars?
If an agitator puts up a balloon and payload, one of which contains a potentially dangerous substance, and a nation in question shoots it down, thus releasing and activating that substance, who is responsible? And who does the public deem responsible? (I don't think this is realistic, just musing about other schemes that could be going on.)
Both would have acted with (at least) careless disregard for human life, so I would consider both to be responsible. It would however be much easier to know who shot it down than it would be to know who put it up, so I think the public would primarily blame whoever shot it down in practice. There would probably be no way to know if the government was telling the truth about the origin of the object in such as situati…
Thanks for thinking it through a bit more in the spirit of the question. That's a bit more what I was getting at. There are potentially instances where it starts to become a grey area (responsibility with both parties), and the separate question is who would the public deem responsible.
Imagine if you launch a balloon for say $10k so that your adversary has to spend $400k on a missile plus $70k x number of planes x hours in flight. And now do it multiple times per week. Seems like a decent strategy.
It's a decent strategy until you realize you're just providing target practice on sorties the enemy would fly anyway. Shooting one missile a day is not affecting that budget. And pilots need constant training.
PLA use USN activities in SCS and recon off her shores for training as well but US activities persist because there's mutual intelligence gathering going on, usually favouring the gatherer since the trade is info on one ISR platform vs said ISR platform gathering from host of sources. PLA probably knows alot about US P8s but those P8s learn about PLA navy, air bases, coastal defenses, radars etc. PRC can't simply shut down their hardware to deny info if collection occurs frequently. The benefit and burden is disproportionate. Hence it's favourable strategy to prod at US capabilites currently limited to CONUS that could be deployed in IndoPac. Imagine PRC sending ballons with iterative hardware to break through US EW, or counter measures to test against US missiles. These are activities US limits elsewhere but pressured to "reveal" because CONUS politics demand shoot downs. US alleged they jammed 1st balloon but likely only PRC on recieving end knows how successful. Learning more about US EW capabilities alone makes such missions useful and in return US... gets to shoot down balloons and get hand on carrying hardware PRC wants to reveal. Which might be huge, or nothing like PRC doing their 1000th P8 interdiction. Economics favouring the balloon is likely secondary consideration.
If an agitator puts up a balloon and payload, one of which contains a potentially dangerous substance, and a nation in question shoots it down, thus releasing and activating that substance, who is responsible? And who does the public deem responsible? (I don't think this is realistic, just musing about other schemes that could be going on.)
Like floating a warhead over the US mainland? It would just count as a first strike regardless I imagine. The bigger question to think about is the fear itself that led you to this question, the fear, the vulnerability and the anxiety you are feeling. Perhaps if americans weren't so frightened all the time there would be less wars?
No, not floating a warhead. See my other comments replying in this thread.
'The bigger question to think about is the fear itself that led you to this question, the fear, the vulnerability and the anxiety you are feeling. Perhaps if americans weren't so frightened all the time there would be less wars?'
I'm not American. I live almost about as far from the US as it's possible to live on this earth and don't feel any anxiety about this. Just a curious observer.
Because operational security. Why give adversaries info about your capabilities.
Pretty sure everyone knows they can take IR photos from the Plane... That is not really a secret. Plus I reject the idea of secrecy from the citizens, government can not be "for the people by the people" if they keep secrets from the people
The resolution is secret - and that matters a lot.
Why do citizens need to know detailed specs of IR optics systems installed on fighter jets? I can come up with reasons why this information should be kept out of adversaries hands: and handing this info out to citizens makes the latter impossible
Both would have acted with (at least) careless disregard for human life, so I would consider both to be responsible. It would however be much easier to know who shot it down than it would be to know who put it up, so I think the public would primarily blame whoever shot it down in practice. There would probably be no way to know if the government was telling the truth about the origin of the object in such as situati…
Thanks for thinking it through a bit more in the spirit of the question. That's a bit more what I was getting at. There are potentially instances where it starts to become a grey area (responsibility with both parties), and the separate question is who would the public deem responsible.
I don't think it's a grey area at all. The first party is responsible for creating the situation, the second for how they deal with it. This happens all the time in cases where the police have to deal with someone who's threatening people.
> In 2002, Griffin was President and COO of In-Q-Tel, a private enterprise funded by the CIA to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests. During this time, he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia where they attempted to purchase ICBMs. They did what now?
Yeah, so the lore goes, Musk just wanted to send humans to Mars, and had no intention, originally, to build his own rockets. The first tactic was to retool an ICBM for spacier spaceflight, but the Russians laughed them out of the country.
> In August 2001, Musk shared a plenary talk with Mike Griffin at the fourth Mars Society convention where he announced his plans to send his greenhouse to Mars.[6] In October 2001, Musk travelled to Moscow with Jim Cantrell and Adeo Ressi to buy refurbished Dnepr ICBMs that could send the envisioned payloads into space.[7]
Have aliens invaded and we just don’t know about it, the government holding them off lowkey? Edit: Now China’s shooting them down! https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/02/12/china-says...
People need to understand that if you’re being attacked by a FTL capable alien invader, you are so incredibly f**ed that it just does not matter. People don’t write popular sci fi novels about realistic alien invasions because they would be so utterly one sided and brief that it simply wouldn’t make a good story.
I forget the name of the TV series but there was a great show where aliens had occupied earth and the drones were just completely lethal and unstoppable. It was very realistic, the machines would just show up and instantly frag everyone in sight. The story was about a cop who ended up working for the alien occupiers, I wish I could remember the name of the show.
It's a decent strategy until you realize you're just providing target practice on sorties the enemy would fly anyway. Shooting one missile a day is not affecting that budget. And pilots need constant training.
PLA use USN activities in SCS and recon off her shores for training as well but US activities persist because there's mutual intelligence gathering going on, usually favouring the gatherer since the trade is info on one ISR platform vs said ISR platform gathering from host of sources. PLA probably knows alot about US P8s but those P8s learn about PLA navy, air bases, coastal defenses, radars etc. PRC can't simply shu…
Not enough acronyms in your comment.
EDIT: judging from your post history, I wonder if you're a ChatGPT bot trained on US military documents. You do love the lingo and unnecessary acronyms.