111–120 of 864 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
my speculation is that the main goal of Chinese covid lockdown was to train and simulate mass policing of population in case of upcoming war.
Why would you need to police population in case of war for returning Taiwan? It will be very popular war and you definitely won't need to lock people down.
> An F-22 fighter jet shot down the object using an A9X missile What a waste if $200k, shooting Chinese baloons. These shold be zapped using lasers.
Don't most f-22s come with a 20mil cannon? Wonder we we're preferring the missiles to just plain old lead?
> An F-22 fighter jet shot down the object using an A9X missile What a waste if $200k, shooting Chinese baloons. These shold be zapped using lasers.
I've wondered if these incursions are intentional on the part of the Chinese to provoke a precedent setting response to airborne (and beyond) surveillance. "They shoot down our surveillance balloons, giving us precedent to shoot down their high altitude drone planes or satellites in the future."
It may not be exactly what they have in mind, but I think it's the right way to think about the question - they are engineering scenarios which work to their advantage no matter how the US responds. US shoots them down? Play outraged. US leaves them alone? US looks weak.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd say it feels like a return to the era of cold war tensions but I wouldn't know, I was born around when the Berlin Wall fell. What say you older HNers, is this what it was like?
The Cold War had expectations, guardrails, rules. Those don't exist in the current setup. China didn't even pick up the emergency hotline in the first balloon crisis.
1. Will I be able to stay in power? (Related: Will my populace support this war? Will my economy keep functioning?)
2. Will I end the conflict with more power / prestige / resources? (Related: How expensive will the conflict be in blood and treasure?)
Most of the things the West are doing over Ukraine are to make the "Related" answers less palatable. Very few people are calculating enough to climb to power, then risk everything on a gamble with bad odds.
If China gets serious about Kinmen and Matsu, then everyone should start worrying.
So what’s the deal with these balloons? Provocation? Do they think nobody will notice?
Laser mapping of military POIs before a war in a few years? See the recent laser rays on Mauna Kea.
Cheap balloon vs expensive missile, seems a good way to bankrupt us by sending continuous balloons.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably didn't help that an Air Force general was openly and loudly proclaiming that war is inevitable. I looked up some speeches of his, and he is off the rails, like the German general in All Quiet Along the Western Front .
I mean, it's nothing compared to the internal speeches that China gives its troops. Heck it's nothing compared to the speeches Xi gives internally to troops. Chinese troops are currently training on their missile corp on models of US aircraft carriers. Edit: Chinese propaganda video of attack on Guam - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBOho1AOKYY https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36598/chinese-air-forc... https://…
I dread to think of all the state-funded technology companies with backdoor-ed firmware/software coming out of China
I don't see much difference between Chinese routers having back-doors and what Cisco has peddled to its customers all these years either willfully or just incompetence.