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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

#991

Post by bxs24p »

anonu wrote: post #881
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.

Also painting China bad is a great method of painting yourselves in better light domestically. Both sides of politics in the US have vested interest in this narrative.

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

#992

Post by mardifoufs »

jasmer wrote: post #545
mardifoufs wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure those million dead people in iraq are glad the fifth fleet is protecting trade or that America didn't actually directly steal their oil. The same goes for the countless lives and futures ruined for the people still living with the consequences of the Gulf War. This is absurd and sounds exactly like a chinese nationalist rhetoric about what Mao did in the great leap forward. Hey, millions died, but think of h…

Yes, it's unfortute that Saddam invaded Kuwait. Thankfully Iraq has some semblance of governance and has valuable Oil assets that it can export, courtesy of US taxpayers. Iraq benefits far more from it's exports than the US gains from protecting them.

You should tell kuwait that they were invaded in 2003.

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

#993

Post by brokenmachine »

sumedh wrote: post #889
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?

Does the cellular network even work at that altitude?

I'm sure it would, with a good directional antenna.

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

#994

Post by brokenmachine »

404mm wrote: post #504
ttul wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would not be concerned about the electronics being damaged so much as recoverable so the components used can be analyzed and the supply chains traced. They want to know whether any export-restricted gear was used and, if so, who is to blame.

Don’t they already manufacture all our export restricted tech? /s Jokes aside, I think the analysis will be more angled to proving or disproving the purpose, and identifying intelligence it gathered through some forensic analysis. If it dips into salty water, all circuit boards are immediately shorted. Seems a bit counter productive to me.

Most space and aviation type stuff has conformal coating which should essentially make the boards themselves waterproof.

Of course things can still get shorted and damaged at the connectors, but the whole thing wouldn't be destroyed by water.

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

#995

Post by WillPostForFood »

scotty79 wrote: post #206
WillPostForFood wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US and Europe brought China into the WTO, gave it most favored nations trading status, transferred trillions in technology, and financed the modernization of the country. Pretty good friends, IMO. But it is not been reciprocated, and is now going bad. The crushing of the democracy movement in Hong Kong was a wake up call as to the intentions of China going forward.

> But it is not been reciprocated, How was it not reciprocated? Whole western world benefited from the cheap Chinese labor for more than a decade. I'd say we helped them economically and they helped us economically. When it comes to politics we don't see eye to eye. As for Hong-Kong they are introducing their politics there. Nothing we can do about it. And we are doing exactly nothing about it. US openly calls China…

I know this is a couple days ago, but they haven't reciprocated by opening their markets to our products. If they are going to take over manufacturing, and largely block US software, tech, and services, then all we get is a depleted manufacturing base and temporary cheap goods stimulus.

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

#996

Post by egberts1 »

Khaine wrote: post #914
egberts1 wrote: post #910

It was probably decided early on that the decision to down the balloon in question over non-populated area due to: 1. Balloon itself is filled with water vapor full of ABC material. 2. Payload has dispersal mechanism of dubious material Nonetheless, in spite of political wrangling, I find it disturbing that we haven’t made a retrieval system capable of snatching things at 60,000 feet.

ahem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery...

Still have to force the balloon down to its aircraft's ceiling heights just to be able to snag the balloon.

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

#998

Post by qwezxcrty »

qwezxcrty wrote: post #928
UltraViolence wrote: post #921

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard U.S. officials say that it's definitely a spy-balloon. They refused to say how they know this, but I assume they have their sources. But a balloon has to intrude in someone's airspace. Doing so could trip off an international incident, like it has now.

Yes, it is definitely a silly move if it's really a spy balloon. But I think it's still too early to draw the conclusion, given the strong Bayesian prior that how unlikely it is for China, with advanced spy satellites and a spy network in the US as accused by three-letter-agencies, to fly a huge, visible by naked-eye, balloon for spying and for starting an international incident.

According to the WSJ article I read today, it is indeed a spy balloon.

Well, then this time CPC certainly did a bad job unless they already got some valuable data.

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

#999

Post by whamlastxmas »

eddsh1994 wrote: post #390
whamlastxmas wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope we have more who are resolved to not treat an entire country as an enemy based on no evidence at all

You have to be blind to modern geopolitics to say there’s no evidence at all

Evidence:

1. One balloon with something attached to it

2. In American airspace

3. The US government, that has a long, rich history of lying, said some things

We have nothing else to go off of. We have no reason to trust statements by the US government of these situations.

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

#1000

Post by whamlastxmas »

eddsh1994 wrote: post #390
whamlastxmas wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope we have more who are resolved to not treat an entire country as an enemy based on no evidence at all

You have to be blind to modern geopolitics to say there’s no evidence at all

Look what we have here. US admitted it has zero link to Chinese espionage at all:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-14/us-says-m...

Thank god we had two weeks of deranged, rabid reporting about China being evil

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