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Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

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Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#341

Post by ericmay »

dirtyid wrote: post #273
lolc wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It’s not favorable because the strategy is flawed by assuming the US hasn’t already or can’t respond. Assuming China continues to engage in activities the US will further escalate to stop the activities and force a war with a favorable hand.

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#342

Post by handedness »

pasabagi wrote: post #265
handedness wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you stated you don't know much about their details, it wasn't meant to be pejorative: they're actually called Blue Helmets (and Blue Berets). I would wager their most defining visual characteristic is their helmet color, which is quite terrible as camouflage and wholly unsuitable for a conventional military force. Their Rules of Engagement are also significantly different from those of a conventional military forc…

Who are we comparing them to, though? The US Military publically ran (and runs) an international network of torture camps. I don't think the US military is especially bad: rather, all militaries are awful, all war is unadulturated evil, and any attempt to make it 'clean' through ROEs or accountability procedures is stupid.

The whole point is that they are without comparison. There is no other force like it in the world. By definition it may have to be that way (if it should exist, which I'm not entirely sure it should), but so long as there are UN peacekeepers there will be armed troops where nobody's really both motivated and able to prosecute their war crimes with any reliability.

The legal framework surrounding UN peacekeeping is insufficient as the UN itself grants its peacekeepers blanket immunity, and expects host and/or contributing nations to prosecute war crimes committed by UN peacekeepers. But those nations are almost by definition unable to maintain the rule of law (or in the case of contributing nations, unlikely or unwilling to prosecute).

I'm not sure why "but other people also do bad stuff" is where everyone seems to go with that information. But to go along it, a more apt comparison would be the Mahmudiyah rape and killings: war crimes committed by US troops in Iraq, in which the perpetrators were tried, convicted and sentenced in American military and civilian courts. That's how that aspect of the inevitable evils of war should be handled:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_rape_and_killings

Had the perpetrators been UN peacekeepers, the host nation likely would not have had the ability to prosecute the accused competently and fairly, and the UN would have given them immunity if expected to act. The contributing nation would not have wanted to prosecute for a whole host of reasons.

One can argue that the UN is doing what it can, but it isn't much: Asking contributing nations to prosecute war crimes committed by their citizens (not likely), shaming those nations [1], and trying to support the victims [2]. Which all goes to show that the UN is rather toothless on the matter. There's an asymmetry to their ability to contribute to violence but not prosecute the criminal abuses thereof. I think that's concerning.

Regardless, your comparison reminds me that even Abu Ghraib resulted in numerous prison terms. Make of that what you will.

[1] https://news.un.org/en/story/2016/01/521142

[2] https://conduct.unmissions.org/remedial-trust-fund

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#343

Post by PeterisP »

moose_man wrote: post #147
georgeg23 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And try to compete with Starship? US can always launch more and for these LEO constellations it's all about numbers.

They have their own space station dude. They also have tons of satellites, including LEO satellites. China is not some poor country.

Starlink is in a completely different class of "tons of satellites" as other platforms simply due to the SpaceX launch vehicles.

China has a total of 600-ish satellites together for all purposes. Starlink has 3500-ish right now, and the already licensed plans are for 12000 by 2026. When(if!) Starship starts launching satellites, a single launch can put in orbit more military satellites than China has ever launched, and it does not seem have a comparable capability in the near future.

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#344

Post by bitL »

HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #45
akmarinov wrote: post #11

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...

> That balloon’s journey set off a huge debate within the U.S. about why it wasn’t shot down earlier, with Republicans arguing President Donald Trump never would’ve allowed such a thing to happen. Except that it did, many times, including over sensitive military facilities in Virginia and California. There’s something hilarious about the idea that, if this was the start of an alien invasion, our journalists and polit…

Don't look up!

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#345

Post by hatsunearu »

Johnny555 wrote: post #334
moose_man wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China could do the same thing if they wanted. That isn't a good excuse to violate national airspace. Maybe they want to intercept cell phone data.

Maybe they want to intercept cell phone data. If they wanted low key interception of civilian terrestrial radio signals, seems like it would be better to just rent a Uhaul or RV, load it up with radio gear, and drive it across the country.

sounds slow and illegal, whereas orbital collection is basically maintenance free and basically legal

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#346

Post by kirubakaran »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #315
anigbrowl wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tbh, I don't think HN's flamewar detector is much good.

Disagree. I’m here too much and see few flame wars.

That just means the false negative rate of the detector is low. Says nothing about the false positive rate.

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#347

Post by jrockway »

prawn wrote: post #250
encoderer wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without a doubt, the person who flies the dangerous thing over the other people is the aggressor. Is this debatable to you?

OK, plane flying overhead. You shoot it down. Who's going to be held responsible? The airline or the people taking it out of the sky? Where's the line drawn if the dangerous thing I mentioned before has a practical use? Maybe the balloon is filled with a mix that is toxic to something (crop, livestock, etc). Or there's a component of the payload that is dangerous when hit by a missile or making contact with the groun…

> OK, plane flying overhead. You shoot it down. Who's going to be held responsible? The airline or the people taking it out of the sky?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007

There may be airlines with slogans like "come fly the friendly skies", but entering controlled airspace without a flight plan or 2 way comms with ATC is anything but friendly. You can try it yourself! Rent a C172 and do some sightseeing in Washington DC. When you get shot down, they will blame you.

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#348

Post by tzs »

encoderer wrote: post #236
prawn wrote: post #231

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.)

Without a doubt, the person who flies the dangerous thing over the other people is the aggressor. Is this debatable to you?

One difficulty might be what counts as flying. If it is a balloon and does not include any maneuvering capability the launching country might try to argue that they just released a balloon over their territory. If the upper atmosphere winds take it somewhere else they might say that an act of God and not their problem.

That might seem absurd, but I believe a lot of countries have made a similar argument for pollutants and waste they dump into the air or water. It took decades for instance to get Canada to stop dumping (literal) shit in waters that end up in Puget Sound [1].

A kind of negative of this arises too, when someone takes something out of the atmosphere or water that passes through their territory and someone downstream had been using that thing.

Generally countries don't really do well when it comes to shared resources like atmospheres and oceans and rivers as far as what happens when one does something involving that resource in their territory that affects it in someone else's territory.

[1] https://www.king5.com/article/news/victoria-bc-will-finally-...

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#349

Post by nwatson »

gambiting wrote: post #153
localplume wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surveillance satellites are very different to directly flying this equipment into US airspace, including the fact that this equipment could hold paylods other than ISR. Not to mention this comment implies China does not have equivalent spy satellites, which it does. Also the UN is an absolute joke. That article links has China and Russia complaining about the West being aggressors so honestly its kinda BS. Also forge…

>>Also the UN is an absolute joke UN is literally just a forum for countries to meet and discuss matters. Nothing more nothing less. I have no idea why people expect UN to take action, when UN is explicitly not an organisation for taking any actions.

UN World Food Programme. Absolutely meaningful. Some other humanitarian coordination too.

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#350

Post by ClumsyPilot »

handedness wrote: post #329
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consider a small sample of heinous cases I can cite henious cases committed by London Police force. Just a couple months ago we've convicted 'bastard dave'. He was a cop and used his position to become a serial rapist and a murderer, and he had a nickname, which strongly suggests some of his colleagues knew something. You have to assess three points to understand if the entire organisation is responsoble. Have they…

It's not about citing heinous cases. You're solving for a different aspect of the problem. Bastard Dave was convicted via an existing enforcement mechanism that in that case was at least arguably functional. The point is if Bastard Dave were a UN peacekeeper in central Africa, the host nation would be unable to try the case, and the UN itself mostly grants its own people blanket immunity and wouldn't prosecute it, ei…

So typically people from examples you listed get away with it?

That's atrocious

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