Donald Trump: Shoot down the balloon! Canadians report possible second balloon…
Well, we know what would’ve happened had the CCP floated their spy balloon over the U.S. when Donald Trump was in the White House. Jack Posobiec, who has experience working at the Office of Naval Intelligence, suggested that on top of shooting down the balloon, that bombers be launched from Guam. Meanwhile, the Canadians are reporting a possible second balloon.
From the Post Millennial:
Office of Naval Intelligence veteran and Human Events senior editor Jack Posobiec agreed with the former president’s assessment, writing, “You shoot down the balloon and launch bombers from Guam that’s what you do when the homeland is threatened.”
Stephen Miller, Trump’s former senior advisor for policy and White House director of speechwriting, blamed current President Joe Biden’s “weakness” for the decision to not shoot down the balloon.
“A Chinese spy balloon casually invading our air space for all to see, conducting day after day of espionage in broad daylight undisturbed, is a stark visual demonstration of Joe Biden’s crippling weakness and our excruciating national humiliation,” he wrote on Twitter.
Brigadier General Pat Ryder announced on Thursday, “The United States government has detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now. The US government to include Norad, continues to track and monitor it closely.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held a meeting with senior Department of Defense leadership on Wednesday, deciding not to take military action due to “the risk to safety and security of people on the ground from the possible debris field.”
Hours after Ryder made the announcement, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy demanded a Gang of Eight briefing, referring to the eight leaders within the United States Congress who are briefed on classified intelligence matters by executive branch officials.
McCarthy tweeted, “China’s brazen disregard for US sovereignty is a destabilizing action that must be addressed, and President Biden cannot be silent. I am requesting a Gang of Eight briefing.”
China’s brazen disregard for U.S. sovereignty is a destabilizing action that must be addressed, and President Biden cannot be silent.
I am requesting a Gang of Eight briefing. https://t.co/KarTCUzbOS
— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) February 3, 2023
Canada also reported on Friday that they are monitoring “a potential second incident” involving a surveillance balloon in their airspace, but did not reveal who could be behind it. Canadian officials said they are working with the US to “safeguard Canada’s sensitive information from foreign intelligence threats.”
The Post Millennial has more on the story here.
I have no doubt biden won’t do anything or say anything until his boss Xi tells him what to say or do. They already bought and paid for biden.
Color me cynical, but isn’t the hallmark of an honest politician that once (s)he’s bewn bought they stay bought?
FJB
that’s how the mob bosses defined an honest politician. Average citizens have a different definition.
I doubt that by now the CCP even bothers to even try to bribe Biden because by now they have at least enough dirt on him to fill a convoy of cargo ships!
Or perhaps a cargo plane out of Hong Kong, with said dirt skillfully concealed among a cargo of rubber dog shit.
With socialist democrat voters, dirt makes no difference. They vote for whomever the party tells them to vote for. You almost have to admire the dedication to stupidity they have in that they continue to support mindlessly the very people who fuck them daily, along with the rest of us. That is a powerful delusion.
Well the last President didn’t have a son that was selling millions of dollars in “artwork” to questionable characters in China.
No just a son an law selling billions in favors to Royal family and a country that attacked the US.
Still waiting for indictments on all those Trump crimes you squawk about. Any idea when I can expect them? Fraud.
Hey yeah, remember all of his squawks about how Donald Trump wouldn’t even finish his first term in office because of “Russiagate” which turned out to be a hoax? Oh yeah, he also screeched about how Zika was going to do us all in, what will Major Moonbat come up with next?
There will be no indictments; everybody knows the Biden Justice department is in Trump’s pocket.
(sarc)
You look like Charlie Brown in ACU’s.
Go play in traffic, loser.
Anything like Hunter Biden laundering bribes via “sales” of his “art”? Like the obvious sales of Classified Documents by the Biden family? I could write a Psychology term paper on Projection from what you post here, Major Moonbat!
Wait, I’m confused… a royal family attacked the US or is that the same people who laughed in Biden’s face when he went full cuck on the pipeline, insulted and threatened them repeatedly and then went hat in hand to their doorstep?
That would be the one he’s referring to. I’m kind of a fan of the Abraham accords. Another big diplomatic victory against Iran. If President Dirp Dirp hadn’t been installed, we probably would’ve had the Saudis signed on by now as well.
The Saudis refused to deal with biden for some time because they knew he didn’t win the election.
And I can clearly remember watching biden on a youtube video where he proudly told some talk show host how he blackmailed the Ukraine to remove a prosecutor who was after his dirtbag son with withholding millions in aid money if they didn’t fire that guy.
Once again:
Up, up and awayyyyy my beautiful, my beautiful
ballllooooooooooooooonnnnn!!!!
Well, it’s been shot down, after crossing a good chunk of the Lower 48.
https://youtu.be/StK5FB5NgVA
Does anyone know if this is the highest Air to Air kill in history? Yes, I could look it up online but I’m lazy.
I think the balloon had descended to somewhere around 45,000 feet by the time it was over the ocean. I don’t know if that’s the highest air to air kill, but I can’t imagine that fighters have typically fought at such altitudes. I’m not feeling the urge to look it up, either.
I was waiting for a Simpsons style moment where the fighter jets tried taking down Sideshow Bob in the Wright Brothers plane, but he was going wayyyy too slow and they rocketed right past him..
“Bogey’s airspeed not sufficient for intercept — suggest we get out and walk.”
They still haven’t. They shot down an unmanned balloon with a very expensive missile when a dozen rounds of 20mm could have done the job as well. At least they hit it.
It could have been launched by the False Commander “Phony” Phil Monkress (CEO of All-Points Logistics) to gather any new Native American, Stolen Valor or Law Enforcement claims to help him and All-Points Logistics fraudulently collect taxpayer-funded government contracts.
After all, Phildo’s claims are getting old and he might need some new material that is out there just waiting to be collected.
None call it Treason, just Chinese Take-out but no roll!
Question is, take out what?
FJB
99 Luftballoon’s
VPyQ08o6VNU
99 Ruftbarroons.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🥃🍺
ATTENTION COMLADES, Honolable CCP say that Honloale barroom is simpry weathel barroom and oh, so solly,…
I’m embarrassed my government is completely incapable in handling this…..
You and me BOTH, Brother.
Nothing inadvertent about it. Biden wanted to collect his bonus from the Chicoms.
Come on man, my bunker is almost built. Can’t we just wait like 3 more weeks? It’s not like I had any control over the weather.
I bet this was all it took to convince the weakest administration in American history to back off…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BnP_mZAv8gE
(Yes, I know they’re Japanese in the cartoon…)
I wonder why he didn’t shoot down the Chinese intelligence balloons that flew over during his administration?
I guess he would only have responded if it had become a mechanism for right wing hysteria.
And they had no interest in being hysterical about it while he was president.
Seems suspicion that none of you gave a fuck about Chinese spy balloons until the Biden administration.
Well, dumbass, the balloon that you so loudly proclaimed to be beyond our reach, has been shot down by an ordinary USAF F-18 Hornet.
Not some esoteric, highly secret, special weapon but just one of the many Hornets in our inventory.
How you ever made field grade or grad school will forever totally amaze ol’ Poe… 🙄
PT, someone posted that during a period of time in the Army, Civil Affairs would take any Officer that was breathing.
It has always amused me (I have been told I am a sick bastard) that US Army Civil Affairs troops were never involved in Iraq after we occupied it or Afghanistan. Obviously we must be saving them for something important.
Uh, Poe, the Air Force doesn’t operate the F-18 Hornet. I’m guessing the aircraft was either an F-15 or an F-22, more likely the F-22 since we have to use it for SOMETHING after all the money we’ve spent on it so far. There was a proposal about 10 years ago to sell new F-18’s to the Air National Guard to replace some older F-16’s in their inventory, but it never got beyond the feasibility study stage.
The repot I saw said a Massachusetts Air National Guard F-15.
I’m wondering if the pilot will be awarded an Air Medal or a DFC.
Damn, let me guess, he used an AMRAAM missile…I mentioned yesterday that this would be a relatively straightforward process with the F-15. As far as the pilot goes, why not both? 🤣He can paint a little red star next to his name on the cockpit and everything. Hey, it’s an air-to-air kill!🤣🤣🍾🥂
Nope. No DFC or Air Medal. The pilot will get an Aerial Achievement Medal. / s
MustangCPT, ol’ Poe wondered about that, because he thought the Hornet had always been strictly naval aviation.
So he just took a grab at the latest thing he’d heard, an F-18 out of Shaw AFB. He should have known better because Shaw has been F-16’s for forty years.
Reports are all over the map since reporters know jack shit about military hardware. Should have known better than to rely on a so-called news report… 😚
In all fairness, the F-18 was developed from a prototype Northrop design, the YF-17 that lost an Air Force competition to what became the F-16. The Canadians use the Hornet for their Air Force since they got rid of their carrier aviation in the ‘60’s.
Now they’re reporting that it was an F-22 out of Langley… 🙄
However it shakes out, it was a standard fighter in our inventory using its standard armament. These news idiots saying that it would be impossible to shoot down is because the Canucks tried to shoot one down a few years back and it took 6 days to hit the ground after the aircraft shot it with guns. Now, the thing is, we’ve known for over 100 years that using guns isn’t the best way to shoot down balloons. For example, WWI fighter planes had a hard time shooting down reconnaissance balloons because putting holes in a giant balloon isn’t going to make it immediately deflate. It’s going to be like a slow leak in your car tire. What allowed them to shoot those balloons down was using incendiary rounds to hopefully ignite the hydrogen gas that the Germans were fond of using. That shit doesn’t work with a helium balloon since helium is the definition of an inert gas.
The recon balloons also shot back.
That’s why they invented incendiary bullets.
“It was not until special Pomeroy incendiary bullets and Buckingham flat-nosed incendiary bullets became available on the Western Front in 1917 that any consistent degree of success was achieved.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_buster
That must be what is in biden’s head then.
Yeah, and I’m hearing gun, not missile. That pilot must have used every round of his M61A2(?) to drop it. Unless, of course, there was a self-destruct mechanism. But then, according to the Chicoms, it was a weather balloon. Why would a weather balloon have a self-destruct?
I heard it was shot up with some 20 mm canon rounds. Whatever it was succeeded in deflating it. I imagine the balloon an it’s gear has already been recovered.
Correction: News reports say it was a Sidewinder missile. There may not be much left of the electronics and photo equipment.
Yup, in spite of assurances from our resident expert on all things, Commissar Lars, it was one of the shorter ranged weapons in our inventory.
And one first introduced into that inventory well-more than a half-century ago.
Once again, that Lars sure showed us, hmm? 😜
Close to 70 years ago. The Navy placed it service in 1956. The Air Force didn’t adopt it until 1964. Obviously, there have been dozens of variants in the intervening years, but the core design was obviously sound.
He couldn’t count his balls twice and get the same number.
“Now they’re reporting…”
It’s the “Mainstream Media”; you will have to wait at least a week before getting anything other than gossip or rumours subject to change without notice.
Fox just confirmed F-22 with a sidewinder missile.
Someone needs to comfort Commissar/Комиссар/
政委 for his grief for Xi Jinping’s loss.
Not even an AMRAAM? Sidewinder is pretty short-range. Curious though, I always thought the Sidewinder was a heat-seeker. Does the latest iteration have the ability to home in on a target if it’s illuminated by a radar like the old Sparrow? I can’t imagine a balloon has that large of a heat signature. Even the electronics in the surveillance package can’t give off THAT much heat.
I just read up on it. The AIM-9X has look-down shoot down-capability through aircraft systems and the Block II variant has “lock after launch” capability so it can be directed to its target after it’s been launched enabling it to function better with the internal weapons bay system in the F-22. Well, ya learn something new every day.
Heat is a symptom of IR radiation. Infra red ain’t just heat. It’s just another frequency band on the EM spectrum, like the microwave radiation that heats food in a microwave oven. Or plain vanilla radio.
If it emits, it can be detected. If astronomers can use infrared telescopes, finding a balloon from less than a mile is a piece of cake.
I read it was an F-22 and a sidewinder. I think the sidewinder was developed back in the 50’s.
Remember, he has no graduate degree. He said he dropped out because of some disease or medical condition.
You’re right about the condition, Counselor; it’s the Latin expression for squirrels frolicking in your gene pool… 😉
I imagine that was the first time a fighter pilot shot down an observation balloon since 1918.
Easy. Some libertard general told him it was impossible based on advice from his civil affairs staff officer.
Silly, silly boi, you just undermined your own position.
First, it couldn’t be shot down because we didn’t have anything that could fly that high.
Now, Trump should have shot it down when it happened under his watch but didn’t because…reasons.
To All and Sundry and TAH –
How do you defeat a Loonie-Leftist argument? Do nothing, they’ll contradict themselves soon enough. Like, every time they open their mouths. But I do understand, it is fun to provoke them into it, and laugh.
You cannot because they are uniformly mentally deficient. All you can do is try to enrage them to the point where they stroke out.
Proof…proof
No fucks were given because the balloons weren’t there. Fraud.
That is because none ever showed up until your favorite fake president and China whore biden took up residence.
I guess you got your answer fucktard.
Either it never happened at all and is just more lies by the Biden Administration or Trump and the cabinet were never informed of a violation of US Airspace by a Chinese Intelligence gathering asset by the military. Those are the only possible answers at this point. One seems more likely than the other to me, since one requires informing the NCA and the other doesn’t. We will probably never know as the Left stream media sweeps it under the rug with their sudden and curious lack of interest in things that happened during the Trump Administration.
Certainly I nor anyone here ever heard about it, so I don’t understand how not knowing about something could be suspicious? Maybe you knew about it because your handlers in China told you about it?
We can do this!
If we launch bombers from Guam, won’t the thrust risk pushing the island into other islands?
Thank you, Congressman Johnson.
One takes off one direction, then the other takes off to the other direction. Keeps the island from tilting over.
Won’t that make the island rock? Isn’t that how tsunamis are created? Like Hank Johnson splashing around in the bath tub?
Too easy.
Stollen valor time at the O CLUB tonight, how many folks in flight suits talking being the balloon shooter?
TOP GUN 3 MAV RETURNS
And you just KNOW there’s gonna be some motherfucker out there trying to look like Nicholas Cage who’s going to claim that he shot it down using an Apache helicopter. Hey, we make Top Gun jokes, might as well make a Fire Birds joke. 🤣
Stop that.
Let me think about that…
Ooh, ooh, OOH Mista’ Kotter, I once talked to some fool who tried to tell me and a couple of others about how HE was tasked with signing out a Stinger missile to shoot down a US Army Apache Helicopter that was stolen from a Flight Line in Germany, NO SHIT, he expected people to actually believe that shit! No, nothing traceable, it was barroom bullshit.
So he signed out the missile and did what with it? That dude couldn’t even put together a complete lie. What a lazy piece of shit. 😂
The funny thing now is if you want China’s opinion on all things balloon you can simply read Forbes Magazine or some other subsidiary of China owned White Whale. This article reads exactly like a Chinese press release. Like 100% exactly what the Chinese line is.
Capitalism in the US has been on the ropes since 2008. Now it is just about gone.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/02/04/yes-chinese-spy-balloons-flew-over-the-us-when-president-trump-was-in-office-too/?sh=5db675143ea3
The funny thing now is if you want China’s opinion on things you can simply read Forbes Magazine or some other subsidiary of China owned White Whale. This article reads exactly like a Chinese press release. Like 100% exactly what the Chinese line is.
Capitalism in the US has been on the ropes since 2008. Now it is just about gone.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/02/04/yes-chinese-spy-balloons-flew-over-the-us-when-president-trump-was-in-office-too/?sh=5db675143ea3
So, do you paint a balloon silhouette on the nose or does that ruin the stealth characteristics of the aircraft?
There are enough of these popping up… is there a transgender minority fighter pilot in the pipeline? Fast track them (or invent them) to become the first ace in… I have no idea how long, anymore.
A “Ghost of Kiev” for the culture wars.
Do you not blame Trump for everything?
😉😎
I think either a yellow 5-point star with a red border or the PRC flag. Fighter pilots don’t differentiate their kills by aircraft type, only by country.
A-10 pilots are a bit different with their display
Well, those are air-to-ground kills. And by the way, did this guy shoot a cow?
Nope had sex with it.
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/this-a-10-warthog-brrrrtttted-a-cow-during-a-cas-mission/amp/
For A-10 air to air kills, there are these:
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/a-10-pilots-explain-how-they-were-able-to-shot-down-two-iraqi-helicopters-during-operation-desert-storm-by-means-of-their-warthogs-30mm-gau-8-a-gatling-gun/amp/
The damn thing should have been shot down the instant it hit American Airspace. It’s that simple. How much more proof do we need that prezzy sniffy creepy is totally incompetent and is nothing more than the (s)elected puppet of people Hell bent on the destruction of America. Our grubermint is so damn corrupt with each side covering for the nefarious activities of the other that it is NOT funny. We are not going to save our Republic by winning the meme war.
Note to the spapos seagull/major moonbat…go piss up a rope, dippy. You do realize that when your beloved commie/marxist masters take over that you and those other useful idiots will be the FIRST (ht2 Tox) to have a bullet come crashing thru the back of your head?
I know we disagree on a lot, KoB, though we both, perhaps to different degrees, think Biden is an idiot, but on this, I have to ask: If it really is that simple, then why didn’t President Trump shoot down any of the three balloons that transited the US during his presidency?
Surely we can agree that national security decisions shouldn’t be made based on how much news they gather, so either 1) he didn’t know that happened, which reflects pretty badly on him unless we start going into the conspiratorial waters that his own National Security Advisors didn’t tell him, or b) he knew and chose not to shoot them down immediately because maybe it’s not so simple.
Genuinely curious to hear what you think.
LC – b.s. That narrative simply does not pass the smell test, the timing test or the rationale test.
In inverse order-
If this were a common event during the previous administration when news of this broke the rationale for not shooting it down would have been – “The CCP has tried this before and we successfully prevent completion of it’s mission, hence they continue to try”.
The timing of that response, were it true, would have been immediate. Not days later as a deflection.
While every other news station was covering this, MSNBC continued with the TDS about Jan. 6. If it were a something that happened repeatedly under the previous administration, their TDS would have lead with that. Hence, failure of the smell test.
This is simple application of common sense and being a critical consumer of information. This consumer, as well as the majority of Americans (read not afflicted with TDS) are choosing to pass on this week’s offering of gubmint cheez.
Just to make sure I understand correctly, are you saying that this hasn’t happened before, despite the DOD saying it has?
I mean, I’m certainly willing to believe the government is lying, and Esper claims it’s untrue – but that’s a pretty big accusation, and I’m guessing we’ll quickly get evidence if push comes to shove.
More to the point, my take is it has happened before, but didn’t result in a public furor. And it’s unfortunate that the public interest seems to determine the course of action. I posted a link below to the incident off the coast of Kauai last year — how many people were talking about that one? Sometimes, things like this reach a new level of awareness with the public, but that doesn’t mean they never happened before.
Provide evidence that the DoD has said this ever happened. But of course you are a libtard so you will not do that.
Who?
Exactly who?
Said what?
FYI, here are various Trump administration folks saying it (likely) didn’t happen during their tenure:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-top-national-security-officials-refute-claim-chinese-spy-balloons-transited-us-under-last-admin
And the link below has the DOD statement saying there were in fact three separate incidents during the Trump administration of balloons entering our airspace, though some reports say they never went as far across the country as this one did.
Guess we’ll know more soon.
LC – the initial inference, now intentional meaning, is “this” happened before, and under Trump as a deflection of criticism of this administration is a desperate lie to placate. Those already terminal with TDS are swallowing and regurgitating the pablum.
No, I do not believe “this”, a spy balloon traversing the entirety of the continent and primarily over the lower 48, happened under Trump.
The backpedaling has already begun.
-well, No, it wasn’t continent crossing, but an incursion is still a violation, and Trump either didn’t know, didn’t care or as further proof of his fascism, controlled the media narrative.
Are there regular “incursions” or “violations” of our airspace, particularly around Hawaii and the Aleutians? Of course, hence our systems in place to detect and deter.
So, questions are appropriate, and the proffered answers are woefully lacking where not outright insulting.
Inferring, as KoB and most others have, this current administration is a bought and paid-for puppet of the CCP passes the smell, timing and rationale tests. With abundant evidence that requires extraordinary mental gyrations to deny.
Not everything is a deflection – KoB mentioned it should’ve been shot down the minute it hit US airspace. Three other ones did, and weren’t shot down, under a different administration. Is that not a double standard?
You can of course argue that they didn’t cross the US, and that’d be correct, and thus the situation is indeed different there. But that’s not what was being argued.
At the end of the day, we’ve had other ‘incursions’ into our air space and that should muffle the most severe partisan rhetoric, even if it raises valid national security questions. Kind of like how Biden having classified docs in various places should muffle the partisan criticism of Trump, even though we probably shouldn’t have any idiots leaving TS/SCI docs laying about.
Donald Trump had the authority to declassify the documents he has secured in a safe watched over by the USSS 24/7 while your idol Joe *DUUHH!* Biden has TS/SCI Documents in a GRAGE by his precious Corvette and there is extensive evidence he has sold at least a chunk of that via his crackhead son Hunter.
You lose.
Now the Pentegon is saying they never even told the NCA. So that is why he didn’t do anything about it, since h never knew.
So what the hell is going on in NORAD? Higher? Where they don’t tell the president that an incursion by a Chinese intelligence gathering asset has violated US Airspace. These guys are starting to look like the FBI.
LC we probably agree on some things more often than you think. You make good points/discussions and do listen to reason more than a certain brainwashed, egotistical, self centered spapos does. I read every thread on this site and 99.69% of the comments A bunch of the “likes” that show up are mine.
All that being said, in this case, I do believe that you are wrong/misled. Were there US Airspace intrusions during the Trump years? Good chance there were. I don’t think there were any times when a foreign aircraft did a comparatively low level pass over the entire country. If there had of been, the hue and cry of Trump not doing anything about it would have burned up the news feeds. Or maybe his “advisors” told him it was “no big deal, happens all the time, we’re on top of it”. We do know now that Trump’s admin was full of Deep State Civil Service moles and RINOs that were wanting him to fail. And if they did happen, Trump should have ordered them shot down too.
I smell a serious bullshit here. The transcript shows that every time the “Senior defense official” is mentioned his name is “inaudible”, and then they say he “can be referred to as Senior defense official”.
Other than the rather spectacular coincidental oddity that he is name is always “inaudible” it is really weird that no one else is going on record.
The president himself is a full pathological liar as has been demonstrated by the hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands of lies he has told. And now some unnamed person is going to carry the water? Horse Feathers, my friend, horse feathers.
My belief in his veracity has hovered around 5% for decades but now is minus something or other. You should be ashamed for even pretending that he can be honest.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3288618/senior-defense-official-and-senior-military-official-hold-an-off-camera-on-back/
Oh, no doubt. I’m quite sure we could grab a beer and politely agree about a whole lot of shit, even if we see differently on things here and there.
And this might be an example of where we both agree and disagree. Sure, if your argument is that we’ve never had one traverse the entire country, you’re almost certainly correct. If the argument is we haven’t had them cross into US air-space -your original comment, mind you- then you’re evidently wrong.
And that’s fine – getting into the details is important, since that’s where things get murky. All in all, I tend to trust the people whose job it is to monitor these kinds of things, and to know how to respond to them, to act properly, regardless of which party the POTUS is from. So I’m not terribly worried. It sounds like our assessment is we gain some intel, and they likely get nothing new except to gauge our response time, which was artificial. I’ll take that trade any day.
Proof
That we had balloons enter US airspace three times during the prior administration? It’s in the link here:
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3288543/f-22-safely-shoots-down-chinese-spy-balloon-off-south-carolina-coast/
There is no proof there, just words by some nameless person.
Because there were no three Chicom balloons in the first place. Deduct 5 more points from yuor score for inability to conduct critical thinking.
Broadly speaking there are two issue at play- the intel value of the balloon and the overarching policy of allowing the balloon to penetrate our airspace.
From an intel perspective, I suppose the balloon was able to get some better photos and richer SIGINT and MASINT than other platforms at a much lower cost. In addition, it could have been collecting on our surveillance and response- IOW, how good is NORAD?
That said, I’m pretty sure the Chinese have Google Earth. As long as no one tells them about TikTok we’ll be OK.
The problem is policy. A Chinese aircraft violated our sovereignty. The state of our defenses and surveillance and intel collection notwithstanding, we let that happen. If we knew about it and let it happen, we just set a precedence. If we did not know about it until it was halfway across the country, the Chinese just learned about our weaknesses.
I don’t think China is planning to attack CONUS, but this will be part of their calculus in other areas.
You can fix an adversary with force or with threat of force. If the leader is weak, either will work.
It’s all coercion.
The most commonly used model of national power is DIME (Diplomacy, Information, Military, Economy).
Since the advent of nuclear weapons the preferred use of power amongst the Great Powers has been deterrence, which is actually the combination of all elements (You gotta have the actual military force, you have to have the economy to maintain it, your enemy has to believe you’ll use it, and you have to also convince them that you won’t use it unless they do).
What seems odd to the modern person here is that we’ve used military power when we are accustomed to deterrence. In reality, the use of the military here backs up deterrence- the Chinese have to realize that we aren’t afraid to use it in the face of provocation.
This is really a cost-free way to demonstrate resolve- if we do it without hesitation.
I would say the issue of ‘precedence’ is what’s changed, but not in the way you’re suggesting. This is the first time we’ve shot one down, or at least the first time it’s been publicly known. It’s not clear what happened in the incident a year ago off Kauai[1], or even if that was a Chinese balloon.
What we do know is that we had three Chinese balloons transit the US during the previous administration[2], none of which were shot down. So we changed things up here, and it seems largely due to the public awareness of things. That’s understandable from the politics angle, but worrying from the national security one.
[1] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44352/f-22s-scrambled-to-investigate-suspicious-high-altitude-balloon-off-the-coast-of-hawaii
[2] https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3288543/f-22-safely-shoots-down-chinese-spy-balloon-off-south-carolina-coast/
LC – thank you for proving my point from above –
“LC – the initial inference, now intentional meaning, is “this” happened before, and under Trump as a deflection of criticism of this administration is a desperate lie to placate. Those already terminal with TDS are swallowing and regurgitating the pablum.”
We “know” that how exactly? The unnamed anonymous defense official concocted by White Whale media? Because the entirety of the Trump Cabinet defense denies it.
https://www.tmz.com/2023/02/05/ex-trump-officials-refute-3-chinese-balloons-flew-before/
I’m guessing if this becomes a political pissing match we’ll learn more. I’m inclined to believe an official DOD press release over a bunch of cabinet-level politicians appearing on talk shows, though. I’m also quite willing to believe that if a presumed harmless balloon didn’t make it into the public’s eye, senior officials may never have been notified.
Surprise, surprise, LC, now DoD is claiming the balloon incursion happened three times under Trump, but the didn’t tell Trump or anyone working for him.
Again, I’m quite willing to believe this was a ‘non-issue’ when it happened during the Trump administration, never rising to the level of notifying senior officials. Now you’re saying that’s the case?
I take it that by ‘surprise, surprise’ you mean it’s a surprise that we’re in agreement. I guess you had to be write once in a while – broken clock theory and all.
Violations of US Airspace by China are a non-issue? Do you work for White Whale Media?
He gets all his info from the MSM and White Whale orgs.
We actually know less now than before. So this balloon that was easily visible from the ground failed to get noticed three times before? Like I said I smell bullshit.
Do you have any idea how many balloons that are visible to the naked eye are launched each year over the US?
I’ve seen a good handful. I usually just go, “Huh, there’s a balloon’, and go about my day, without going to DEFCON 1.
How many of them have giant solar panels hanging off them again? Certainly you wouldn’t confuse it with a normal weather balloon which is about six feet across? Or a recreational balloon which has a gondola with people in it and doesn’t normally fly above 12K feet? How stupid do you think people are? Wait, you are Democrat, never mind.
Sure, because an unidentifiable and thus non credible source said it must be true. Maskirovka 101.
Real proof
I can categorically prove you wrong. If any of that had happened, the leftist press would have been savaging Trump over it, and the socialist democrat insurrectionsts in congress would have impeached him yet again for it.
Donald Trump could have passed gas overseas and the liberal media would accuse him of experimental chemical warfare!
If things did in fact go as they are reported, that the Biden team is willing to brief senior Trump officials on the previous three balloon transits it raises some interesting questions.
There are two scenarios I see in such a case if the reporting is accurate that the intel was released after the Trump team left office. That our intel community didn’t know the balloons were there previously until they reviewed the current data which seems a bit of a stretch. Or the intelligence community knowingly withheld that information, a far more problematic reality. One for which a last cigarette, a blindfold, and some gun shots are in order…
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/05/trump-officials-deny-chinese-spy-balloons-00081257
Do your kids that you like to bring into this blog agree… you are a fraud sir.