> it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to spend gobs of cash. Yeah, the Mig-25 / F-15 thing comes to mind. Soviets develop a super secret jet,

> it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to spend gobs of cash. Yeah, the Mig-25 / F-15 thing comes to mind. Soviets develop a super secret jet, very big, very fast.. it must be very impressive fighter jet! America is spooked so tons of resources are poured into the F-15 to make the absolute best possible air superiority fighter jet they can, to counter this new Soviet threat. Except then it turns out that the Mig-25 was never a fighter jet, it was an interceptor that was very fast in a straight line but not much more. So the US built an incredible air superiority fighter to counter a phantom of a jet that never really existed in the way America thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#Focus_on_air_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#F... Come to think of it, maybe China is going low-tech with balloons to avoid this dynamic?