In previous times, the US would ignore these balloons and quietly take them down. Instead they made a big deal out of it and milked it. Brilliant and opposite of what china expected
Have a single source?
U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
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Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#422In previous times, the US would ignore these balloons and quietly take them down. Instead they made a big deal out of it and milked it. Brilliant and opposite of what china expected
Bullshit. Had civilians not seen it the government would never have reported it.
Not even as a purposeful distraction from something more important?
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#423Spy balloon cost : $3k - $50k , you can even buy them on alibaba and some other sites: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-hot-sale-surveillance-balloon-with_60454941082.html https://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/jennerjiang/product-list/catalog-1.html?view=0 Cost to shoot down balloon with F22 $400k for the AIM-9X, ~$85k for 1 hour of flight time, so ~$400 - $500k to shoot down one balloon that cost < $50k
Are you serious? This is like looking at a F1 car and going "oh yeah, that's super cheap. Go carts only cost a couple thousand dollars". DoD says that the payload of the balloon is as long as three buses lined up end to end. The balloon itself is likely bigger than many office buildings. A state of the art sensor suite is going to run in the millions. Claiming you can get all that for sub 50k is laughable.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#424Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
While that's true, i think crimea and the associated warm water port (sevastopol) is of strategic value. After the crimean invasion, the mainland of ukraine has cut off the water canal, which meant that the peninsular needs to be constantly supported by the russian mainland. It's not quite sustainable in the long term for russia to do that. The land bridge is their "solution". I don't see taiwan as similarly strategi…
> While that's true, i think crimea and the associated warm water port (sevastopol) is of strategic value. Russia already had naval basing rights is Sevastopol, before the invasion of Crimea. I don’t think the strategic explanations hold up.
They had it on a lease from Ukraine until 2017. Renegotiation of the lease barely passed Ukraine's parliament back in 2010.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#426I am so tired of China being used to stoke American jingoism, of politicians making a contest of who is really 'tough on China' and, most horrifyingly, of seeing other USians online practically salivate as they fantasize about a war with China. It's some cold war boogieman horseshit. And it's depressing to watch here on Hacker News, too, any comments that question the beating of those war drums go dead. Yesterday I h…
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…
Which exactly China geopolitical goals not aligned with the West do you mean? Where are they declared?
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
You think the rest of the world has not developed? Have you been out in the world?
My point is the world will develop whether or not that is in the interest of those in power. I'm just going to assume you're not trying to say the world is evenly developed.
If the world was ever evenly developed, it was when it was completely developed.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#428Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please point out some American media claiming we should go to war with China. That's just a ridiculous statement. There is no amping up for offensive war with China. There is plenty of amping up of concern that China will invade Taiwan and that we'll likely need to defend them. However the US is actively trying to prevent that from happening by being loud on the global stage and actively trying to show that the US do…
That's why I said "subtly" and "written between the lines". War propaganda doesn't work by overtly saying "Hey, guess what, we should go to war". It builds up little by little, starting with plausibly innocent imagery (for example, picture of Country X's leader, then picture of Country X's military, then picture of Our Country's military--just that silent video montage gets into people's subconscious and starts doing…
War propaganda is in fact generally overt. It's some of the most overt propaganda there is usually.
And no, informing the populace that a country is a potential aggressor is not "war propaganda".
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#430Spy balloon cost : $3k - $50k , you can even buy them on alibaba and some other sites: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-hot-sale-surveillance-balloon-with_60454941082.html https://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/jennerjiang/product-list/catalog-1.html?view=0 Cost to shoot down balloon with F22 $400k for the AIM-9X, ~$85k for 1 hour of flight time, so ~$400 - $500k to shoot down one balloon that cost < $50k
What's your point? We should make military decisions based on how much the target costs? You don't understand why that's ridiculous?