4 ms·

Does anyone else think these have been happening a long time but now they make front paper news because of recent activities?

pyuser583 4y ago
Yeah, it seems we’ve just been letting these things fly through our airspace.
37 4y ago
Which recent activities? House hearings on weaponization? Hersh's article on Nord Stream? Something else?
- thepasswordis 4y ago
  There's a war happening in Europe right now. That's a pretty major recent activity.
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    Don't worry, a border dispute involving Germany and Russia would never get out of hand.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  The demonization of China is politically advantageous. Publicizing incursions like this assists in the demonization (to be clear, it is think it’s warranted — the amount is espionage perpetrated by China on the US, corporate and cyber and governmental, Is insane)
  - allisdust 4y ago
    Forced labour camps, genocide, authoritarian, cyber warfare against other nations, salami slicing neighbours, purposefully violating air space over other nations. I don't think China needs any demonisation. This is just showing its reality. If anything both sides of the political spectrum doesn't want to get into showing China as the demon because unlike the previous cold war, they are not sure if they can win it or even force a draw. China is too powerful as it stands and getting more powerful as years pass while the current superpower is busy fighting it self with culture wars.
    - roca 4y ago
      China is weakening. Centralization of power is making the government brittle. The government is deeply unpopular domestically, and there is no outlet for this resentment so it's continually building. China has no real allies; most countries, especially their neighbours, deeply distrust them. China's demographic outlook is terrible; the population has peaked and they've transitioned directly from enforced one-child to hardly anyone wanting more than one child. China is indeed extremely powerful but it has peaked.
      - allisdust 4y ago
        Its basically a pressure cooker. It's strong but there are no relief valves (apart from nationalistic saber rattling on various internal social media). When the pressure is sufficiently built up and the valves aren't sufficient they will blow but that is also why they keep taking provocative measures. To keep the valves working.
- pphysch 4y ago
  Nordstream, failing Ukraine war, awkward Syria sanctions + earthquake, Ohio disaster, France protests, etc. Great time for a scapegoat.
- ianburrell 4y ago
  The spy balloon was bigger than previous and visible from the ground. People were reporting it and forced government to respond.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  China has been providing military support to Russia. With a certain lens, you can see the proxy war growing from Russia and Ukraine to Russia-China and Ukraine-NATO. https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/02/04/china-helping-russias-war-with-ukraine-with-military-aid-violating-sanctions-reports-show/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/02/04/china-h... https://www.ft.com/content/3146a413-9aba-4fd4-86a7-671bce0e6c00 https://www.ft.com/content/3146a413-9aba-4fd4-86a7-671bce0e6...
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/3210882/ukraines-zelensky-china-there-would-be-world-war-if-you-ally-russia https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/... (Ukraine’s Zelensky to China: there would be a ‘world war’ if you ally with Russia)
SamPatt 4y ago
Yes. This phenomenon happens all the time. Panics are human nature.
justin66 4y ago
> Does anyone else think these have been happening a long time but now they make front paper news because of recent activities? Possibly. I wouldn't use that information to be overly dismissive of the importance of the news. "Well shit, let's just start shooting them down" is a newsworthy change in a government's policy regardless of what it applies to.
- ElectricalUnion 4y ago
  To me this sounds like a Chinese victory. If a couple of (supposedly bad and kinda not working) chinese spy baloons were suffient to suddenly make the US go nuts, and spend a lot of defense budget scrambling fighters around and shooting down UFOs, that was a lot of bang for the buck.
  - krashidov 4y ago
    Yes I’m sure they will bankrupt the USA one balloon at a time. Do you really think the objective here is to get us to waste money ?
    - ElectricalUnion 4y ago
      No, it's to find out how little/much/slow/fast you need to be before the USA detects it and starts launching interceptors. Or, if the USA just shots down everything once it enters its territory, future dirt cheap, "don't even have to be smart" bio/chemical weapons platform.
  - justin66 4y ago
    > spend a lot of defense budget scrambling fighters around and shooting down UFOs I doubt if the expenditure has been significant. The US has a lot of air to air missiles, pilots who need flight time, etc., and a lot of that stuff is a sunk cost. There could potentially be a big increase in cost in the days that follow, for the US and for Canada. It's valuable, fragile human beings who need to do dangerous things like dive for surveillance balloon parts, or go out onto the ice to collect them, but the cost of scrambling some fighters and firing some Sidewinders by itself can't be that high. If scrambling fighters was all there was to it, the costs could probably be rationalized as a valuable training exercise. I would venture to guess that if you tried to reduce everything to a dollar cost, the cost to the civilian economy of closing a portion of the airspace on the East Coast a few days ago to facilitate the interception of the balloon was higher than the cost of all these military operations to date. > make the US go nuts Yes, measured by the whole "make the Americans act crazy" metric, they're doing great. It's like Judo or something: we Americans just need a little push...
westhom 4y ago
I have a strong hunch the US had known about them for a long time and maybe decided it’s better to let them hang out so they can be studied and secretly test measures against them, versus reveal response patterns and weapons capabilities. But something recently has made that calculus change.

pyuser583 4y ago

Yeah, it seems we’ve just been letting these things fly through our airspace.

37 4y ago

Which recent activities? House hearings on weaponization? Hersh's article on Nord Stream? Something else?

thepasswordis 4y ago
There's a war happening in Europe right now. That's a pretty major recent activity.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  Don't worry, a border dispute involving Germany and Russia would never get out of hand.
TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
The demonization of China is politically advantageous. Publicizing incursions like this assists in the demonization (to be clear, it is think it’s warranted — the amount is espionage perpetrated by China on the US, corporate and cyber and governmental, Is insane)
- allisdust 4y ago
  Forced labour camps, genocide, authoritarian, cyber warfare against other nations, salami slicing neighbours, purposefully violating air space over other nations. I don't think China needs any demonisation. This is just showing its reality. If anything both sides of the political spectrum doesn't want to get into showing China as the demon because unlike the previous cold war, they are not sure if they can win it or even force a draw. China is too powerful as it stands and getting more powerful as years pass while the current superpower is busy fighting it self with culture wars.
  - roca 4y ago
    China is weakening. Centralization of power is making the government brittle. The government is deeply unpopular domestically, and there is no outlet for this resentment so it's continually building. China has no real allies; most countries, especially their neighbours, deeply distrust them. China's demographic outlook is terrible; the population has peaked and they've transitioned directly from enforced one-child to hardly anyone wanting more than one child. China is indeed extremely powerful but it has peaked.
    - allisdust 4y ago
      Its basically a pressure cooker. It's strong but there are no relief valves (apart from nationalistic saber rattling on various internal social media). When the pressure is sufficiently built up and the valves aren't sufficient they will blow but that is also why they keep taking provocative measures. To keep the valves working.
pphysch 4y ago
Nordstream, failing Ukraine war, awkward Syria sanctions + earthquake, Ohio disaster, France protests, etc. Great time for a scapegoat.
ianburrell 4y ago
The spy balloon was bigger than previous and visible from the ground. People were reporting it and forced government to respond.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
China has been providing military support to Russia. With a certain lens, you can see the proxy war growing from Russia and Ukraine to Russia-China and Ukraine-NATO. https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/02/04/china-helping-russias-war-with-ukraine-with-military-aid-violating-sanctions-reports-show/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/02/04/china-h... https://www.ft.com/content/3146a413-9aba-4fd4-86a7-671bce0e6c00 https://www.ft.com/content/3146a413-9aba-4fd4-86a7-671bce0e6...
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/3210882/ukraines-zelensky-china-there-would-be-world-war-if-you-ally-russia https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/... (Ukraine’s Zelensky to China: there would be a ‘world war’ if you ally with Russia)

SamPatt 4y ago

Yes. This phenomenon happens all the time. Panics are human nature.

justin66 4y ago

> Does anyone else think these have been happening a long time but now they make front paper news because of recent activities? Possibly. I wouldn't use that information to be overly dismissive of the importance of the news. "Well shit, let's just start shooting them down" is a newsworthy change in a government's policy regardless of what it applies to.

ElectricalUnion 4y ago
To me this sounds like a Chinese victory. If a couple of (supposedly bad and kinda not working) chinese spy baloons were suffient to suddenly make the US go nuts, and spend a lot of defense budget scrambling fighters around and shooting down UFOs, that was a lot of bang for the buck.
- krashidov 4y ago
  Yes I’m sure they will bankrupt the USA one balloon at a time. Do you really think the objective here is to get us to waste money ?
  - ElectricalUnion 4y ago
    No, it's to find out how little/much/slow/fast you need to be before the USA detects it and starts launching interceptors. Or, if the USA just shots down everything once it enters its territory, future dirt cheap, "don't even have to be smart" bio/chemical weapons platform.
- justin66 4y ago
  > spend a lot of defense budget scrambling fighters around and shooting down UFOs I doubt if the expenditure has been significant. The US has a lot of air to air missiles, pilots who need flight time, etc., and a lot of that stuff is a sunk cost. There could potentially be a big increase in cost in the days that follow, for the US and for Canada. It's valuable, fragile human beings who need to do dangerous things like dive for surveillance balloon parts, or go out onto the ice to collect them, but the cost of scrambling some fighters and firing some Sidewinders by itself can't be that high. If scrambling fighters was all there was to it, the costs could probably be rationalized as a valuable training exercise. I would venture to guess that if you tried to reduce everything to a dollar cost, the cost to the civilian economy of closing a portion of the airspace on the East Coast a few days ago to facilitate the interception of the balloon was higher than the cost of all these military operations to date. > make the US go nuts Yes, measured by the whole "make the Americans act crazy" metric, they're doing great. It's like Judo or something: we Americans just need a little push...

westhom 4y ago

I have a strong hunch the US had known about them for a long time and maybe decided it’s better to let them hang out so they can be studied and secretly test measures against them, versus reveal response patterns and weapons capabilities. But something recently has made that calculus change.