So about this spy balloon...

[HeatherC]

At least they DID something. Can you imagine China letting us enter their airspace and not doing anything about it?

 

[White Cat]

Oh, I fully know this isn't what this is. China wants a war with us. This is all part of their long game.

But they ALSO like to buy up a bunch of land here. That's a fact.

You state that China wants a war with us like it’s a fact. I can’t see were you would be in a position to know what future plans the Chinese government has.

 

[DLgal]

You state that China wants a war with us like it’s a fact. I can’t see were you would be in a position to know what future plans the Chinese government has.

Are you being serious right now? All you need to do is look at where the military resources are going right now, and where the future "battlefields: are expected to be. The Pacific theater will be the site of the next major conflict and China will be the aggressor. You can bet on that. They want Taiwan, and they want control over more in the South China Sea. Everything we have done since WWII in the Pacific has been done to mitigate that type of power grab. We literally just re activated Guam as a major Marine Corps base, where they will have 5,000 troops full time as a strategic move towards having easier access to the Philippines for a larger military presence with partner nations. They are actively working towards establishing new bases all over the Pacific. It's part of a massive strategic plan to have a larger presence there at all times, and the ability to quickly launch troops from closer by.

If you haven't realized what China has been doing over the last few years, that's fine, but don't act so surprised when you hear that China's endgame is war.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Oh, I fully know this isn't what this is. China wants a war with us. This is all part of their long game.

But they ALSO like to buy up a bunch of land here. That's a fact.

Those two things are contradictory. War means any of their assets, including land bought, would be confiscated. And they'd do the same with any of ours over there.

 

[mom2rtk]

There are far cheaper ways to survey land. I find this to be hogwash. They don't need to use a spy satellite to look at the land. Of course it will fly mainly over open land. Most of the western United States is open land. There are however many sensitive places in those open areas.

It's no coincidence that a lot of that wide open space is also where sensitive military sites are located. It flew over our area, many are assuming because of the proximity to Whiteman Air Force base, home of the B-2 bombers.

 

[mom2rtk]

At least they DID something. Can you imagine China letting us enter their airspace and not doing anything about it?

They did something after it had completely passed across the country and gathered whatever information they were after.

 

[JaxDad]

They did something after it had completely passed across the country and gathered whatever information they were after.

And that information would include our response…

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

It's no coincidence that a lot of that wide open space is also where sensitive military sites are located. It flew over our area, many are assuming because of the proximity to Whiteman Air Force base, home of the B-2 bombers.

not to mention Fort Leavenworth, New Century Airport which has army reserve with chinook helicopters and they are very active, Fort Scott (although that's further south), etc.

 

[HeatherC]

They did something after it had completely passed across the country and gathered whatever information they were after.

Exactly! I totally agree! Shouldn’t have been allowed to even enter our airspace.

Hopefully, they at least were able to block communications being sent back to China while it was floating around. Personally, I am not feeling too confident about that but we will never know.

 

[john7994]

Are you being serious right now? All you need to do is look at where the military resources are going right now, and where the future "battlefields: are expected to be. The Pacific theater will be the site of the next major conflict and China will be the aggressor. You can bet on that. They want Taiwan, and they want control over more in the South China Sea. Everything we have done since WWII in the Pacific has been done to mitigate that type of power grab. We literally just re activated Guam as a major Marine Corps base, where they will have 5,000 troops full time as a strategic move towards having easier access to the Philippines for a larger military presence with partner nations. They are actively working towards establishing new bases all over the Pacific. It's part of a massive strategic plan to have a larger presence there at all times, and the ability to quickly launch troops from closer by.

If you haven't realized what China has been doing over the last few years, that's fine, but don't act so surprised when you hear that China's endgame is war.

Meh ... we are doing a better/faster job of undoing ourselves at the moment (on both sides of the aisle) - the Chinese or Russians don't need to be that worried.

 

[mom2rtk]

And that information would include our response…

Yep. Our weak delayed response.

 

[Colleen27]

They did something after it had completely passed across the country and gathered whatever information they were after.

Except that 1) we, as the general public, have no idea what information they were after, much less whether or not they got it and 2) it is entirely possible that the response was part of the information they sought. I'm reading a lot of two broad schools of thought right now. One is what what you said in your later post, that the slow response makes us look weak or indecisive. The other is that a more aggressive response would signal a lack of caution about the potential payload, something that could potentially be exploited later. The fact is, all of us armchair foreign relations quarterbacks will probably never really know one way or the other what reasoning went into the decision not to bring it down until it was offshore, much less how that decision might be interpreted by Chinese leadership.

Something else I saw mentioned by a friend with a background in international relations is that we in the US are assuming the balloon launches are all about us, but it very well might not be about us at all. Between unprecedented mass protests and the consequences of the abrupt and by many accounts virtually unmanaged end to its zero covid policies, the Chinese government has every reason to want a show of national achievement/glory to take the domestic focus off of its internal missteps. And with a second balloon over South America, which is hardly a hotbed of military installations China would have reason to want intel on, it feels like there might be something to that perspective.

 

[TheDad00]

Just lol at all these arm chair quarterbacks. Like any of you know.

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

This balloon thing creeps me out. I'm very content that the US shot it down.

 

[TwoMisfits]

What bothers me is that the military briefed the US president on Jan 28 about the balloon and its air space incursion. And the White House sat on the news and did nothing until the Billings local news broadcast a pic of the balloon. Then on that Wednesday, 2/1, after the news broke, the president told the military to shoot it down. And the military then waited til today, 2/4, to do so.

That's so not comforting on so many levels, except I guess that we can still thank local journalists for breaking the news stories no one else seems to want to do.

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

What bothers me is that the military briefed the US president on Jan 28 about the balloon and its air space incursion. And the White House sat on the news and did nothing until the Billings local news broadcast a pic of the balloon. Then on that Wednesday, 2/1, after the news broke, the president told the military to shoot it down. And the military then waited til today, 2/4, to do so.

That's so not comforting on so many levels, except I guess that we can still thank local journalists for breaking the news stories no one else seems to want to do.

Well you know what they say. Our Governments DO have intelligence services - they're called CNN.

 

[Marrila]

What bothers me is that the military briefed the US president on Jan 28 about the balloon and its air space incursion. And the White House sat on the news and did nothing until the Billings local news broadcast a pic of the balloon. Then on that Wednesday, 2/1, after the news broke, the president told the military to shoot it down. And the military then waited til today, 2/4, to do so.

That's so not comforting on so many levels, except I guess that we can still thank local journalists for breaking the news stories no one else seems to want to do.

I'd doubt the public has access to all the timeline (and briefing) details.

 

[TwoMisfits]

I'd doubt the public has access to all the timeline (and briefing) details.

The public didn't at the time...but the press, including Reuters and AP, is now happily and helpfully sharing the whole timeline after the fact.

Which is great if you like being the last to know...

"The balloon first entered U.S. airspace in Alaska on Jan. 28 before moving into Canadian airspace on Monday Jan 30. It then re-entered U.S. airspace over northern Idaho on Jan. 31, a U.S. defense official said. Once it crossed over U.S. land, it did not return to the open waters, making a shootdown difficult."

"U.S. officials did not publicly disclose the balloon's presence over the United States until Thursday."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-says-us-is-going-take-care-of-chinese-balloon-2023-02-04/

 

[Marrila]

The public didn't at the time...but the press, including Reuters and AP, is now happily and helpfully sharing the whole timeline after the fact.

Which is great if you like being the last to know...

So you are saying Reuters and AP are invited to classified briefings?

 

[TippyThomas]

I'm positive there is all kinds of facts and info none of us are aware of. Won't stop people from forming an uninformed opinion but here we are.