Posted on 02/06/2023 5:02:03 AM PST by FarCenter
That’s what great powers do, so get used to it
...
Consider this: The Chinese military has operated such endoatmospheric satellites over the hotly contested South China Sea for years. These balloons are cheap but effective tools for surveillance– and targeting. They are used by China to track US Navy warships transiting the South China Sea. The surveillance equipment is provided by China’s major technology firm Huawei.
To protect its own wounded political image at home, the Biden Administration has since released information that China launched three similar balloons into the United States during the Trump administration and the forty-fifth president did not respond. This behavior in the context of great power rivalry really is nothing new.
The recent comments by the American officials are clearly concerning to China. Given the trajectory of the Chinese spy balloon, it is obvious that it was surveying America’s nuclear weapons arsenal.
Plus, the altitude of the Chinese balloon gave it clear line-of-sight to sensitive US military satellites operating in low-Earth orbit. Beyond that, the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah – Area 52 – is the home of America’s hypersonic weapons tests.
Given China’s clear supremacy in hypersonic weapon technology, all these points of interest were likely the targets of the Chinese intelligence collection mission. They want to know if America is actually going to war, and if so war against whom and how China will be impacted by it.
This event was a nuisance and a terrible failure in deterrence on the part of the Biden Administration. The infernal balloon should’ve been shot down when it was over the Aleutians, not after it had traversed the whole North American continent.
The spy balloon’s presence over American skies was not, however, the end of the world.
Standing ready but being responsible
America must be vigilant awaiting the time when China seeks to upend the international order by force – which I believe it will. But Washington must balance that need for vigilance with the responsibility to maintain stability as best as it can – especially at a time as critical as the one we find ourselves in.
The last thing we need to be doing is picking fights with nuclear-armed Russia and China simultaneously. Washington must prepare for war without courting it. It is time for Americans to recognize the new geopolitical moment we find ourselves in and to recognize that the Chinese actions, while disturbing to the domestic peace, are normal in the context of great power relations.
We will do similar things to China and they will become angry at us for that.
America must do a better job of defending its airspace and deterring future behavior without escalating into the irrational area we all seem heading toward on this subject.
Finally, Americans must recognize that, as we are a great power, our behavior and our words affect the world. We should not be surprised when the world reacts to what we say and do, any more than our rivals should be offended when we respond to the questionable things they do and say.
Welcome to great power competition in the twenty-first century. Grin and bear it.
You mess in our affairs (e.g. South China Sea and Taiwan), we can mess in yours.
To advertise a sale at Mattress King?
Why did they send the balloon surveillance?
BECAUSE THEY COULD.
It's not really a competition if only one side competes.
Maybe the best thing to come out of this shirt-show clown event is waking up a small percentage of the anesthetized population.
Why does a dog lick it’s balls?
NOW it can be revealed, it was really a bylloon. The bylloon’s pronouns are (*&”/#@/&*) a State secret. Because the bylloon was not destroyed over US airspace can be interpreted to mean that bylloonphobia, and antibylloonism are not growing as fast as suspected, and there is still time to institute Federal re-education (preschool to post graduate level) bylloonism sensitivity training and brainwashing. By the time the Feds are done, any cis/hetero balloons will be a distant memory.
To spy on and humiliate us. Rub our noses in it.
The military says these balloons have a certain amount of maneuverability. How much? And, how much of a payload can they carry? Japan bombed Oregon during WWII with balloons. What are the possibilities of Chinese balloons being used for offensive weapons??
They didn’t send *a* balloon. Just sayin’.
Plus... The price of balloons have gone up. Put’em in the
air and shoot’em down. Gotta keep testing various measures.
At 60,000 feet the horizon is 300 miles away. So take the path of the balloon and draw a parallel line 300 miles on each side and that’s what could be visually observed. Hopefully we can retrieve the payload from the ocean and tear it apart to see it’s capabilities.
Would you rike to ride in my beautifur barroon?
Would you rike to gride in my beautifur barroon?
We courd froat among the stars together, you and I
For we can fry, we can fry
Up, up and away
In my beautifur, my beautifur barroon
Keep dem cameras moving
round’em up, shoot’em
down, rawhide.
What could they possible spot on the ground that can't be seen with their own satellites or Google Earth?
Hell, I could see my car parked in my driveway via Google Earth.....
Why do people assume we aren’t doing similar stuff to China? Not balloons…but watching them? I would be more surprised to find out we didn’t.
Yes, but they do it to pathetic and helpless nations. This was not a U2 overflight or anything like that. It was a bold, open, and in-your-face move.
In a way, it was like how the great powers sent gunboats up the Yangtze River 100 years ago. China was pathetic and helpless in those days. It looks like the shoe is now on the other foot.
Yeah. Some folks with Team Biden already backtracked the story that it happened 3 times under Trump. It just wasn’t true but they did what they wanted. They got the lie out there and it gets repeated over and over.
The national security establishment would not have informed Trump, lest he do something rash.
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