c_hawkbob wrote:Seeing a lot of angst ove why we didn't shoot it down sooner, IMO of course they waited till it got over the Atlantic to shoot it down. China ain't getting any intel from that thing they don't already have from satellites. It's just sabre rattling akin to Jong Il's missile launches, no need to kill ourselves over it.
Aseahawkfan wrote:Who is voting for that insane woman MTG? How did she get into and stay in office? Sheesh.
RiverDog wrote:Yeah, no kidding. But then again, you live in a city that keeps putting that insane woman Kshama Sawant on the city council.![]()
I honestly don't know what the motivation is for the Chinese to start floating balloons into the western hemisphere. If it's to embarrass Biden, they achieved their goal, but why did they send one to South America?
RiverDog wrote:I honestly don't know what the motivation is for the Chinese to start floating balloons into the western hemisphere. If it's to embarrass Biden, they achieved their goal, but why did they send one to South America?
Aseahawkfan wrote:I don't know. See if we're stupid enough to let a balloon with spy tech get deep into the country? Or a test run for something else?
NorthHawk wrote:There are reports that 3 of them flew across the country during Trump’s Presidency.
NorthHawk wrote:If it was just a weather balloon, why didn’t China announce that it went rogue? Why the secrecy? The Chinese play the long game and it’s probably a probe to see how this regime reacts and how it’s dealt with. But it could serve as a bit of intelligence information as to how it communicated and maybe the encryption methods along with identifying what targets they are interested in. They might have had aircraft following it and gathering data bursts or discovering how to jam communications.
NorthHawk wrote:The Chinese are testing western reactions and seeing how much they can get away with is the probable answer combined with some additional intelligence as everything they find adds or confirms their data.
Following it and collecting data (what they are looking at and their communications methods) is said to be the probable cause of not shooting it down early.
What I don't understand is if this is a real intelligence object and the various agencies know it, with all of the vast expanse of open fields, why didn't they shoot it down over land where they could pick up the pieces easier?
Some of the farmland has very few buildings on it so the chance of damage would be small. Now they have to try to fish the pieces out of the ocean where contact with sea water may very well have damaged any components
or access to data on electronic equipment.
NorthHawk wrote:It's quite possible that story is a distraction, but I also wouldn't unequivocally believe any Trump supporter where his actions or inactions are under scrutiny.
Why would Trump not do anything? He wants to curry favor with every strongman leader and his own ego might have suggested that it's only a balloon and they can get the data from satellites, not fully understanding
the ramifications of the spying. But who really knows? It might very well be a planted story to distract from the current administration.
NorthHawk wrote:Trump loyalist no. Trump supporter, maybe.
Most of the people you mentioned I suspect were MAGA Republicans and I wouldn't trust them regarding their views about Trump at all.
After his political future is gone then things will become clearer, but right now he's still the front runner for the GOP so all players are falling in line to preserve their chance to get rehired.
mykc14 wrote:What a bizarre story. The more you hear the weirder it becomes. It makes no sense to wait for a spy balloon to complete it's course over the whole country before shooting it down- none what so ever, especially because there would have been ample opportunities where you could take it down safely. What message would that send to every other nation? Pretty stupid excuse. It also doesn't make much sense that Trump would know of three spy balloons flying across the country during his presidency. He hated China and would have used it as an opportunity to prove they were spying on us- way too good of a fearmongering opportunity for him to pass up. Bizarre.
NorthHawk wrote:As I said and I was first exposed to it was a former Intelligence Officer who suggested the military was capturing data on what info was being sent back to China and how they were doing it.
It was a chance to observe a spying device in action.
Trump cosied up to Zhi and although his public face was hating China, we don't know what conversations went on behind closed doors. Trump was/is susceptible to being manipulated by powerful leaders and early in
his Presidency he liked China. I have no idea when these other 3 balloons were said to have crossed the country, but if it was early in Trumps reign then it's possible he wouldn't want to harm what he thought was
a budding relationship, like he thought he had with Kim in NK.
So why would someone that just a few weeks ago called Trump a "liar", "dope", and "disgruntled boring fool" lie for him?
I could go down the list and cite other examples, but I don't see the point if you're going to mistrust anyone simply because they once served in the Trump Administration.
That also doesn't jive with what Biden claims as he said that he wanted to shoot it down but that the reason he was given by the military was that it would put US citizens at risk do to the falling debris. Besides, if there were 3 other balloons a few years earlier as is the story, wouldn't they have already collected that kind of information? I'm not buying that excuse at all.
That also doesn't jive with what Biden claims as he said that he wanted to shoot it down but that the reason he was given by the military was that it would put US citizens at risk do to the falling debris. Besides, if there were 3 other balloons a few years earlier as is the story, wouldn't they have already collected that kind of information? I'm not buying that excuse at all.
NorthHawk wrote:Do you think that spying agencies across the world continue to use the same techniques for decades?
With technology advancing rapidly, gathering intel would either confirm it was the same, or if it was different and how it was different.
The gathering process could take a week or more and it might take months to figure out what it means. The more data you have, the better your intelligence.
c_hawkbob wrote:There is no reason, other than partisanship, not to believe that Biden gave the order to take the balloon down as soon as it was safe to do so when he was first briefed on it.
c_hawkbob wrote:As far as the three incursions during the Trump era my understanding is that these we described as "briefly entering" our airspace. Drawing an equivalency of those to a balloon that got away from them and wandered across the continental US is just more partisanship, albeit from the other side.
c_hawkbob wrote:It seems to me China has probably made a habit of pushing their limit with these things just as they do with Naval War Games in the Taiwan Strait and this one lost it's navigability for some reason and went for a wander.
It's actually fortunate for us that we were able to gather so much intel on it electronically and now from it's recovered debris.
c_hawkbob wrote:I don't care why they send one south of us, but I'm not arrogant enough to suppose that the only intel they care about gathering is in the US. They probably got 'em all over and now that it's 'a thing' we'll start hearing a lot more about 'em.
c_hawkbob wrote:I'd say Balloons are on the less expensive end of the surveillance device scale.
RiverDog wrote:The answer to why they sent one south might tell us why they are sending them over the US. Is there any chance at all that our assessment that it's a surveillance craft is inaccurate and their claim that it's a research vessel is true? Do they have weather instruments that could be mistaken for military surveillance equipment? Or is there something going on in Latin America that we might want to know about, too? Or are they so incompetent that they arbitrarily send expensive equipment out in such a haphazard manner not having the foggiest idea where it'll end up?
In any event, the balloons being sent into the western hemisphere are all relevant to the one that we shot down last week.
RiverDog wrote:The answer to why they sent one south might tell us why they are sending them over the US. Is there any chance at all that our assessment that it's a surveillance craft is inaccurate and their claim that it's a research vessel is true? Do they have weather instruments that could be mistaken for military surveillance equipment? Or is there something going on in Latin America that we might want to know about, too? Or are they so incompetent that they arbitrarily send expensive equipment out in such a haphazard manner not having the foggiest idea where it'll end up?
In any event, the balloons being sent into the western hemisphere are all relevant to the one that we shot down last week.
Aseahawkfan wrote:China has been trying to build ties with Latin America for a while.
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-influence-latin-america-argentina-brazil-venezuela-security-energy-bri
They want to shift the global game board in their direction by being the big country providing aid with less political interference than they would receive from America. They can open new markets for Chinese goods and create more reliance on China for security and military support.
With America moving in the direction it is with Trump isolationist and the left pushing cultural changes much of the world doesn't want any part of, why not push yourself as an alternative?
China has always been much more patient and intelligent than Russia. They will keep expanding their influence economically to set themselves up to be the big dog.
We're not talking about decades; we're talking about a couple of years. In addition, it was a matter of weeks that the balloon was in the air and over US airspace, overflew a missile site in Montana after which there were multiple places to bring it down as they eventually did. How long does it take to collect the necessary information? Besides, like I said, it doesn't jive with what Biden himself said the reason was for not taking it down immediately. There was no mention by anyone in the Administration of gathering counterintelligence.
RiverDog wrote:I'm not sure if I buy all of this or not, but here's at least an explanation from a military official about why they couldn't have brought the spy balloon down over Idaho and Montana:
We're not talking about decades; we're talking about a couple of years. In addition, it was a matter of weeks that the balloon was in the air and over US airspace, overflew a missile site in Montana after which there were multiple places to bring it down as they eventually did. How long does it take to collect the necessary information? Besides, like I said, it doesn't jive with what Biden himself said the reason was for not taking it down immediately. There was no mention by anyone in the Administration of gathering counterintelligence.
NorthHawk wrote:Where did you get decades?
RiverDog wrote:I'm not sure if I buy all of this or not, but here's at least an explanation from a military official about why they couldn't have brought the spy balloon down over Idaho and Montana:
mykc14 wrote:Yeah, I don't buy most of this either. Like you said, plenty of remote areas to take this thing down. It really makes no sense to let a spying device complete it's mission before you destroy it. On multiple levels it is a threat to us. By not doing something about this you are letting the whole world know they can easily spy on us and we will allow it. Imagine if a country- or a random terrorist organization- decided that they did want to drop a large scale nuclear bomb on us. We've basically let them know that we will allow it to go wherever it wants and we won't do anything about it. We have to have a better response to situations like this.
RiverDog wrote:So why send a spy balloon over there?
RiverDog wrote:So why send a spy balloon over there?
Aseahawkfan wrote:Assist the local governments in gathering intelligence, provide them with support. Same as we do all the time with allied governments screwing their own people. We have given tons of intelligence and military assistance to nations looking to screw their people under the guise of alliance. Why would China be any different?
Or could be looking for American assets in Central and South America.
There are are variety of reasons why they might do it. They are trying to curry favor with governments in that area and helping them with more advanced intel they can't afford is one way to help.
Aseahawkfan wrote:I'd have to first see what kind of tech is in these balloons. Maybe they are doing a test run to start selling these balloons to nations looking for cheap security intel gathering. Made in China label on them.
From the first sentence in your previous post: Do you think that spying agencies across the world continue to use the same techniques for decades?
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