4 ms·

But we can't fly drones over China and Russia like we can Pakistan

jessriedel 14y ago
You can if you make them small enough. I don't think any of us know what the classified state of the art is.
blhack 14y ago
Uh...look at this thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnR8fDW3Ilo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnR8fDW3Ilo This is made by Festo, a German industrial automation company. They did this for a trade show. It was "for fun". Imagine what we're capable of building for spying on China. I doubt we're having problems with it.
excuse-me 14y ago
And satellite surveillance is less useful these days. 1960s - we have photographed Soviet SAM sites around Moscow. We know where to avoid to send bombers in. 2010 - we have photographed a semiconductor fab in china. We don't know what they are making but we can tell where the fab is to an inch.
- jackpirate 14y ago
  You can tell a lot about what they're making based on its proximity to other resources, the shape of the buildings, the schedule of supply deliveries, etc. Intelligence analysts are a crafty bunch.
  - excuse-me 14y ago
    Yes but - shipping schedules, raw materials, invoices and hirings will tell you a lot more about that than high resolution sat photos of a building in an office park in a city center
  - uptown 14y ago
    How'd that work out for the US with Iraq? http://articles.cnn.com/2004-04-03/us/powell.iraq_1_official-iraqi-organization-biological-weapons-labs-state-colin-powell?_s=PM:US http://articles.cnn.com/2004-04-03/us/powell.iraq_1_official...
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      Has anyone written a definitive account of the intelligence failure here? A step-by-step kind of thing, not a pointless "BuSh LiEd!!!" kind of thing?
      - uptown 14y ago
        Yes. A commission appointed by Bush took a look at the nation's intelligence community after the Iraq failure and found it to be severely lacking. http://articles.cnn.com/2005-03-31/politics/intel.report_1_major-intelligence-failure-iraq-survey-group-national-intelligence-estimate?_s=PM:POLITICS http://articles.cnn.com/2005-03-31/politics/intel.report_1_m...
        waterlesscloud 14y ago
        Thank you, that lead me to the actual report here- http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/wmd/report/index.html http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/wmd/report/index.html
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    If you had some sort of theoretical wide-scale, long-term coverage, I wonder if you could actually track the supply shipments from the source? Hmmm.
    - excuse-me 14y ago
      You might find this interesting - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem

You can if you make them small enough. I don't think any of us know what the classified state of the art is.

Uh...look at this thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnR8fDW3Ilo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnR8fDW3Ilo This is made by Festo, a German industrial automation company. They did this for a trade show. It was "for fun". Imagine what we're capable of building for spying on China. I doubt we're having problems with it.

excuse-me 14y ago

And satellite surveillance is less useful these days. 1960s - we have photographed Soviet SAM sites around Moscow. We know where to avoid to send bombers in. 2010 - we have photographed a semiconductor fab in china. We don't know what they are making but we can tell where the fab is to an inch.

jackpirate 14y ago
You can tell a lot about what they're making based on its proximity to other resources, the shape of the buildings, the schedule of supply deliveries, etc. Intelligence analysts are a crafty bunch.
- excuse-me 14y ago
  Yes but - shipping schedules, raw materials, invoices and hirings will tell you a lot more about that than high resolution sat photos of a building in an office park in a city center
- uptown 14y ago
  How'd that work out for the US with Iraq? http://articles.cnn.com/2004-04-03/us/powell.iraq_1_official-iraqi-organization-biological-weapons-labs-state-colin-powell?_s=PM:US http://articles.cnn.com/2004-04-03/us/powell.iraq_1_official...
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    Has anyone written a definitive account of the intelligence failure here? A step-by-step kind of thing, not a pointless "BuSh LiEd!!!" kind of thing?
    - uptown 14y ago
      Yes. A commission appointed by Bush took a look at the nation's intelligence community after the Iraq failure and found it to be severely lacking. http://articles.cnn.com/2005-03-31/politics/intel.report_1_major-intelligence-failure-iraq-survey-group-national-intelligence-estimate?_s=PM:POLITICS http://articles.cnn.com/2005-03-31/politics/intel.report_1_m...
      - waterlesscloud 14y ago
        Thank you, that lead me to the actual report here- http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/wmd/report/index.html http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/wmd/report/index.html
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  If you had some sort of theoretical wide-scale, long-term coverage, I wonder if you could actually track the supply shipments from the source? Hmmm.
  - excuse-me 14y ago
    You might find this interesting - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem