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US Allowing a Chinese Spy Balloon to Fly Across the Country

It's not doing anything that can't be done by satellite. Seems like a move to provoke us ahead of the visit.
 
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Gmoney4WW said:
It's not doing anything that can't be done by satellite. Seems like a move to provoke us ahead of the visit.
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Isn’t the provocation the act of flying the balloon in our airspace and over our country?
 
Gmoney4WW said:
You seem to be restating my post? That was exactly the point I was making.
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My point is if there’s a perceived hostile act it’s the flying a military object into US airspace and subsequently across the country. Does anyone believe the Chinese would allow the US to fly a balloon across its borders ? I’m confused how refusing to allow a Chinese military device to enter US airspace would weaken our position in these talks. If anything the failure to stop the same seems to place us in a position of weakness. To my knowledge the US has always protected its airspace against the likes of Russia and China? Looking forward to a more detailed explanation. The Chinese appear to have launched a second balloon btw.

Update….appears the meeting with the Chinese isn’t going to occur this weekend due to the violation of our airspace. Weird deal

 
lawpoke87 said:
My point is if there’s a perceived hostile act it’s the flying a military object into US airspace and subsequently across the country. Does anyone believe the Chinese would allow the US to fly a balloon across its borders ? I’m confused how refusing to allow a Chinese military device to enter US airspace would weaken our position in these talks. If anything the failure to stop the same seems to place us in a position of weakness. To my knowledge the US has always protected its airspace against the likes of Russia and China? Looking forward to a more detailed explanation. The Chinese appear to have launched a second balloon btw.

Update….appears the meeting with the Chinese isn’t going to occur this weekend due to the violation of our airspace. Weird deal

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How does it place us in a position of weakness. Perceived weakness maybe, but not true weakness. We and they do the same thing w/ satellites 24/7. If it causes danger to those below, then doing nothing is the better measure. Blowing it out of the sky with no heed to the consequences is just a bunch of bravado that accomplishes nothing. I'm pretty sure we've never done this to them, because it accomplishes nothing.

I don't get your post though. Is your question about whether it would weaken our position in these talks posed to me, or just a generalized question posed to the audience. Provoking and weakening are not synonyms, nor were they meant to be. You seem to be looking for an argument from me, when I did nothing to propose an argument. I said that this was an act to provoke us. I did nothing to imply one way or the other whether it would weaken our position in the talks. It would not.

But since you are looking for an argument from me, I'll propose one now. What would we be protecting our airspace from, a balloon that does the same thing satellites do in space? That means we AND they are getting away with this type of act 24/7. That does nothing to protect our airspace. This balloon is not threatening people, property, or never seen before secrets. Why would we shoot this balloon down if we don't shoot their satellites down. (And they, ours.) Letting them get the best of us, over a balloon that accomplishes nothing is just letting them get our goat.
 
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We are setting the precedent that a foreign country can violate our airspace and fly a maneuverable surveillance craft across our country. This is in direct violation of international law. Not sure how anyone doesn’t understand how this gives off a perception of weakness as well as the precedent it sets. The satellite argument is more than bit silly imo as countries don’t claim sovereignty as to space.

Would China allow us to a maneuverable surveillance craft over its country ? No chance.
 
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lawpoke87 said:
We are setting the precedent that a foreign country can violate our airspace and fly a maneuverable surveillance craft across our country. This is in direct violation of international law. Not sure how anyone doesn’t understand how this gives off a perception of weakness as well as the precedent it sets. The satellite argument is more than bit silly imo as countries don’t claim sovereignty as to space.

Would China allow us to a maneuverable surveillance craft over its country ? No chance.
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Heck, a lot of China is already in Oklahoma , look at all of the dope farms
 
One thing that balloon had over a satellite was real time monitoring of things like our cell phone networks.
 
Just a weird deal. We apparently tracked it from the time it left China to it entering Alaska then into Canada then across the continental US. A path which purposely took it over strategic US military sites. Then we wait until it exits the US to bring it down.
 
lawpoke87 said:
Just a weird deal. We apparently tracked it from the time it left China to it entering Alaska then into Canada then across the continental US. A path which purposely took it over strategic US military sites. Then we wait until it exits the US to bring it down.
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Mabye they hacked it, and found a way to interrupt it with false data. We probably won't ever know the reality of it. We should have brought it down in Alaska or informed and worked with Canada to determine where over Canada to bring it down. Even though it was on a clock, they had a lot of time within that clock, to utilize a hack over Alaska and Canada. I assume they were working on it/communicating about it, through the back door with Canada.
 
lawpoke87 said:
Just a weird deal. We apparently tracked it from the time it left China to it entering Alaska then into Canada then across the continental US. A path which purposely took it over strategic US military sites. Then we wait until it exits the US to bring it down.
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It's been said that there have been a number of these balloons over the past few years (possibly under Trump as well) this is just the first we've heard about.

Edit: Now confirmed by the Pentagon that it happened at least three times under Trump's administration
www.defense.gov

F-22 Safely Shoots Down Chinese Spy Balloon Off South Carolina Coast

A U.S. Air Force fighter safely shot down a Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said in a written statement.
www.defense.gov

The balloon did not pose a military or physical threat. Still its intrusion into American airspace over several days was an unacceptable violation of U.S. sovereignty. The official said Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration.
 
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Story just got a lot more interesting. Anonymous DOD source claims three similar balloons entered the US from 2017-2021. The Sec of Defense and DNI during that time along with several others in the intelligence community dispute that claim. Grab the popcorn. Might be more intriguing than allowing China to fly a surveillance craft across the entire U.S. before bringing it down.
 
lawpoke87 said:
Story just got a lot more interesting. Anonymous DOD source claims three similar balloons entered the US from 2017-2021. The Sec of Defense and DNI during that time along with several others in the intelligence community dispute that claim. Grab the popcorn. Might be more intriguing than allowing China to fly a surveillance craft across the entire U.S. before bringing it down.
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I'm thinking they've hacked the transmissions out or in, considering it has happened this often. Probably a game of high stakes, where they get signals in and out, we block it, and it repeats all over again in real time. Why would they not shoot it down early,(over alaska) if we didn't have the upper hand on this somehow.
 
Gmoney4WW said:
I'm thinking they've hacked the transmissions out or in, considering it has happened this often. Probably a game of high stakes, where they get signals in and out, we block it, and it repeats all over again in real time. Why would they not shoot it down early,(over alaska) if we didn't have the upper hand on this somehow.
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I’m not buying a Chinese balloon has ever flown over the continental US for days and over strategic defense sights. We will see
 
lawpoke87 said:
I’m not buying a Chinese balloon has ever flown over the continental US for days and over strategic defense sights. We will see
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Do you think Trump would want to admit that? The military probably convinced him to keep it quiet.

If we did hack it, my only question on the hacking, is why we didn't get a hold of the controls. Then we could tell it to land and take their equipment in. Maybe we've already done that with one of the earlier ones?
 
Gmoney4WW said:
Do you think Trump would want to admit that? The military probably convinced him to keep it quiet.

If we did hack it, my only question on the hacking, is why we didn't get a hold of the controls. Then we could tell it to land and take their equipment in. Maybe we've already done that with one of the earlier ones?
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It’s not Trump. It’s the Sec of Def and DNI along with several other intelligence officials including several who aren’t Trump Allie’s. If a Chinese craft entered our airspace and the Sec of Def and DNI were not notified people at the DOD need to be court martialed. Need more info but I’m not buying we let three Chinese craft transverse across our countryside and say back and watched while not following the chain of command with the Sec of Def and DNI….among others

I’m also not buying the hack. Like you said we would have landed it long before it reached the continental US. Zero reason to let that thing over the US for days on the assumption the Chinese don’t or can’t gain access to the information it’s receiving. Too high stake of a game for us to be playing.
 
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lawpoke87 said:
It’s not Trump. It’s the Sec of Def and DNI along with several other intelligence officials including several who aren’t Trump Allie’s. If a Chinese craft entered our airspace and the Sec of Def and DNI were not notified people at the DOD need to be court martialed. Need more info but I’m not buying we let three Chinese craft transverse across our countryside and say back and watched while not following the chain of command with the Sec of Def and DNI….among others

I’m also not buying the hack. Like you said we would have landed it long before it reached the continental US. Zero reason to let that thing over the US for days on the assumption the Chinese don’t or can’t gain access to the information it’s receiving. Too high stake of a game for us to be playing.
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I'll say it again. We will never know the whole story. Too much top secret info for them to release it or admit it. It would blow the whole operation if they did either. There are probably reasons why they would have let it happen once or four times. The only way it might ever come out, is as a footnote in history books published 30 or 50 years from now. This is not a situation where transparency is advisable or wise.
 
Gmoney4WW said:
I'll say it again. We will never know the whole story. Too much top secret info for them to release it or admit it. It would blow the whole operation if they did either. There are probably reasons why they would have let it happen once or four times. The only way it might ever come out, is as a footnote in history books published 30 or 50 years from now. This is not a situation where transparency is advisable or wise.
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Disagree to a point. We will now know some details on the other three times assuming they did occur and why the DOD apparently failed to follow the chain of command. That’s a huge deal and will warrant an investigation.

I also don’t believe Trump allows three Chinese balloons to fly across the country and not shoot the things down. We will see if I’m correct.
 
Trump's cabinet probably saw the balloon and said "it couldn't have come from China, it's clearly not made out of paper"
 
lawpoke87 said:
Disagree to a point. We will now know some details on the other three times assuming they did occur and why the DOD apparently failed to follow the chain of command. That’s a huge deal and will warrant an investigation.

I also don’t believe Trump allows three Chinese balloons to fly across the country and not shoot the things down. We will see if I’m correct.
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Appears I was 100% correct. Worrisome China can fly aircraft across our borders undetected. Hopefully we take the appropriate steps. My question now is how did we discover years later of these balloons? Assume facts will continue to slowly come out.

 
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Gmoney4WW said:
It's not doing anything that can't be done by satellite. Seems like a move to provoke us ahead of the visit.
Click to expand...
It’s no accident that this occurred about a month after we publicly unveiled the B-21.

We show the world a new stealth bomber with all the bells and whistles, and they float a balloon overhead with such a large payload that we can’t shoot it down safely. They are trolling us.

We did allow it to fly over, but we also took precautions to try and prevent it from ‘phoning home’ and sharing data that it acquired. And then shot it down as soon as it was deemed safe and in a way that lets us attempt some recovery so we can see what tech was in it. But it’s probably a PR stunt mostly meant to embarrass the US. Spy satellites are a thing.
 
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Why couldn’t we shoot it down over the Alaska or Canadian wilderness ?
 
lawpoke87 said:
Why couldn’t we shoot it down over the Alaska or Canadian wilderness ?
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I was under the impression that we didn’t detect it until it was over Montana.

We could have shot it down at that point, but the risk to life and private property was deemed too high. It’s a big object and it was very high up, making it kinda hard to say much about exactly where it will land. Might have been a pretty small risk, but how many headlines would it have made if something the size of a football field crashed into a ranch house and killed someone’s whole family?

If you are able to disable its ability to communicate, which I believe we were able to do, there is no real reason to take even a small risk. Just wait until it’s over water.

They exploited a hole in our ability to detect something like this. We don’t typically guard against 18th century tech. I believe the primary goal was to cause chaos and embarrassment, and provide a contrast with to the B21. Mission accomplished.
 
lawpoke87 said:
My point is if there’s a perceived hostile act it’s the flying a military object into US airspace and subsequently across the country. Does anyone believe the Chinese would allow the US to fly a balloon across its borders ? I’m confused how refusing to allow a Chinese military device to enter US airspace would weaken our position in these talks. If anything the failure to stop the same seems to place us in a position of weakness. To my knowledge the US has always protected its airspace against the likes of Russia and China? Looking forward to a more detailed explanation. The Chinese appear to have launched a second balloon btw.

Update….appears the meeting with the Chinese isn’t going to occur this weekend due to the violation of our airspace. Weird deal

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I will just note that I agree that China would probably shoot it down if we did the same thing. But two things: 1) we don’t really play the game in the same way. Public embarrassment means something in a liberal democracy. But not in an autocracy where most of the populace would never hear about it anyways. So we wouldn’t do this in the first place. And 2) the Chinese gov’t is not known for caring much about the welfare of their populace, so they might shoot it down over a city even. That is not a trait to be envied. A rural ranch house would be an acceptable loss if the balloon poses a credible threat, but if you can disable its comms, then it is just a balloon with a Chinese flag on the side. Still worthwhile to shoot it down and see what is inside, but absolutely no need to risk anything.
 
Clong83a said:
I was under the impression that we didn’t detect it until it was over Montana.

We could have shot it down at that point, but the risk to life and private property was deemed too high. It’s a big object and it was very high up, making it kinda hard to say much about exactly where it will land. Might have been a pretty small risk, but how many headlines would it have made if something the size of a football field crashed into a ranch house and killed someone’s whole family?

If you are able to disable its ability to communicate, which I believe we were able to do, there is no real reason to take even a small risk. Just wait until it’s over water.

They exploited a hole in our ability to detect something like this. We don’t typically guard against 18th century tech. I believe the primary goal was to cause chaos and embarrassment, and provide a contrast with to the B21. Mission accomplished.
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NORAD said they began tracking as it approached Alaska but I obviously have no idea if that’s true. I could see us trying to get that info out as we apparently failed to detect multiple Chinese balloons in the past
 
lawpoke87 said:
NORAD said they began tracking as it approached Alaska but I obviously have no idea if that’s true. I could see us trying to get that info out as we apparently failed to detect multiple Chinese balloons in the past
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I have heard conflicting things on this.

I think that they realized it was a giant spy balloon when it was over Montana. Then they could look back and see that NORAD had tracked it all the way back to Alaska.

And now they are going back and looking at other anomalous data in the past and have identified three previous incursions.

At least, that's what makes the most sense to me.



It's also possible that they did identify it off the coast of Alaska, but depending on its path, it may have very quickly moved into Canada before we had a chance to react. Some parts of Alaska are pretty darn thin and remote. And for whatever reason we kept quiet about it, maybe with the cooperation of the Canadians in the meantime.

Speculating, but the point is that even if we did identify it earlier, I can think of a thousand reasonable explanations other than apathy at the highest levels. Maybe Canada wanted to observe it and not shoot at it and didn't want it public. Or maybe we figured out how to send false signals and wanted to subversively feed the Chinese bogus info before we publicly "found it". Or many many other possibilities.
 
Clong83a said:
And for whatever reason we kept quiet about it, maybe with the cooperation of the Canadians in the meantime.

Speculating, but the point is that even if we did identify it earlier, I can think of a thousand reasonable explanations other than apathy at the highest levels. Maybe Canada wanted to observe it and not shoot at it and didn't want it public. Or maybe we figured out how to send false signals and wanted to subversively feed the Chinese bogus info before we publicly "found it". Or many many other possibilities.
Click to expand...
 
Clong83a said:
I have heard conflicting things on this.

I think that they realized it was a giant spy balloon when it was over Montana. Then they could look back and see that NORAD had tracked it all the way back to Alaska.

And now they are going back and looking at other anomalous data in the past and have identified three previous incursions.

At least, that's what makes the most sense to me.



It's also possible that they did identify it off the coast of Alaska, but depending on its path, it may have very quickly moved into Canada before we had a chance to react. Some parts of Alaska are pretty darn thin and remote. And for whatever reason we kept quiet about it, maybe with the cooperation of the Canadians in the meantime.

Speculating, but the point is that even if we did identify it earlier, I can think of a thousand reasonable explanations other than apathy at the highest levels. Maybe Canada wanted to observe it and not shoot at it and didn't want it public. Or maybe we figured out how to send false signals and wanted to subversively feed the Chinese bogus info before we publicly "found it". Or many many other possibilities.
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I'm hoping we were able to override the feed, and send them footage from something like 'Beijing Bastards'.
 
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I am getting annoyed with partisan politicians (on both sides) jumping on a story. They spit their six cents out of their a$$es without even being briefed. Later they hear someone informed about the issue, and look like fools. (backpedaling as fast as they can)

I guess they figure if they wait to hear the whole story, it might steal their thunder. Then they might lose their opportunity to ream on the other party. At least the first words I heard out of Rubio's mouth came after he had spoken to somebody about the issue.(probably in the defense dept) He realized their had been issues before(with balloons) and acknowledged them. All the while, others were denying their were balloons during the Trump regime.

It shouldn't take too much of a Congressman's time to make the appropriate calls, and wait an half hour, or half a day, before speaking. But then you wouldn't get to rile up the public about it. This is one of the reasons why the public becomes so antagonistic. The public is looking for something to be upset about, so the politicians oblige without a moments hesitation. I miss the small bit of integrity politicians used to have.

Myself, I don't like falling prey to half information.
 
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