Drones are spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon acts like they’re UFOs (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Drones are spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon acts like they’re UFOs (2021)

thedrive.com

127 pointskrapp128 comments

And what exactly should be done about it?

If they hypothesis is true, that a bunch of these UFO are actually drones / balloon trying to provoke a response and gather telemetry, then isn't the act of reacting to it and trying to light up the drone is exactly what your opponent wants?

If this is a telemetry probe in drone / balloon form, this is honestly nothing new. That's why subs are routinely in opponent waters, or tailing training exercises while trying to remain undetected. Or just outright fly a plane into opponent territory, provoke a response, record it so that the home team gets something to work on. The US is the masters at this and it's acting surprised that others are trying to play the same game?

>then isn't the act of reacting to it and trying to light up the drone is exactly what your opponent wants?

Honestly, probably not in a lot of cases. If the intent is to collect, then destroying the drone ends the collection.

That depends on what you are trying to collect, doesn't it?

It probably isn't optical data. Satellites are more than good enough for that, and near-realtime high-resolution data is even commercially available. It probably isn't electronic transmissions either. Having a field operative hide a SDR would be way easier, and way less conspicuous.

However, it could be trying to determine how the military responds to hostiles. Sending a jet after it and shooting it down might be exactly the kind of data it is trying to collect.

It could be, but it's specific and situational. If you're the one sending the balloons, you don't really know what the response will be. Further, whatever the response is will not be a good test for an actual military test, (foreign fighters or bombers) which will surely have a different response.

The balloon was 10-20x closer than satellites. Can get 100-400x better resolution photos.

Well, the main point of the article seems to be that we should be developing far more effective anti-drone measures, and developing them faster.

The opponent wants to spy and probe and test. Destroying those drones is exactly what we should want, and what your opponent doesn't want.

The only reason to allow these drones/balloons to operate freely is if we already have effective anti-drone measures that we're keeping secret, in order to goad an enemy into a false sense of security -- which the article also considers but then dismisses as unlikely.

But aside from that hypothesis, I fail to see why destroying invading military technology would be "exactly what your opponent wants".

> The only reason to allow these drones/balloons to operate freely is if we already have effective anti-drone measures that we're keeping secret, in order to goad an enemy into a false sense of security -- which the article also considers but then dismisses as unlikely.

My question is what do we gain from showing them we can shoot them down? how much more detailed of info are they getting from these drones that they aren't getting from LEO satellites? Shooting them down just gives whatever opponents test data for getting past our defences when they potentially actually need to in the future when they're actively hostile.

The article explains they could be collecting "extremely high-quality electronic intelligence data on... America's most capable air defense systems... that is very hard to reliably obtain otherwise. These radar emissions, and the datalink communications that go along with them, underpin highly networked counter-air architectures that are unmatched anywhere on earth. By gathering comprehensive electronic intelligence information on these systems, countermeasures and electronic warfare tactics can be developed to disrupt or defeat them."

That's the stuff you don't get from LEO satellites.

There’s always an imagination that China is better than us at this and from reading between the lines at what the TLAs are able to do they aren’t even close.

I don't think underestimating your opponent has generally proven to be an effective military strategy.

If these spy drones and balloons exist, then you can sure bet they're doing something of value. Militaries don't design and fly these things for the fun of it.

And why are you assuming it's only a problem if they're better than us at it? We could be spying on them even more effectively, but that's not a reason to not prevent them from doing the same to us.

You're making the assumption that the intelligence apparatus of foreign countries is some purely rational actor. You can bet they are doing something of value, but that doesn't make the bet correct.

For all we know, China may have decided that every Baptist church is a possible nuclear launch site and that they all need to be priority #1 for surveillance. Particularly on Wednesday nights when all the folks in the surrounding community come in early in the evening and sometimes don't leave until late at night.

I know that the Soviets had radars that were not normally on - they were only on when defending against an incursion or attack. I do not know, but I wouldn't be surprised if the US also had such radars.

If they're here to try to assess our air defense network, then a reasonable response is don't turn it on. Don't turn on the best radars. Don't turn on the data links from the air combat control centers to the air force bases (or to the planes in the air).

Sure, they can see the vanilla stuff better than they can from a satellite. But if the good stuff is off, they don't find out much about it.

You need to turn that stuff on in order to test it though. To run drills and exercises and make sure people are using it correctly and build experience with it. No?

Of course. But you don't need to run those drills while there's a foreign surveillance drone in the neighborhood.

Search and acquisition radars. Or, most of the time, the same radars as always but with a lot more power. But more power => more noise for the neighbours, more heat, less operating time, yada-yada.

> don't turn it on

There is no need to? It was detected long ago and was followed both with radio and visually.

> But aside from that hypothesis, I fail to see why destroying invading military technology would be "exactly what your opponent wants".

You got it. There is no "aside". That is it.

Imagine you want to defeat a big powerful attack dog. You know the dog can only hurt you if it sees you. You send tiny mice towards the dog and you measure carefully how far they get before the dog kills them. If the dog is in the habit of killing every mice it sees then you can check exactly how well it can see, better than an eye-chart. And with that knowledge you can outmanoeuvre the dog.

If the dog chills out and only snaps at the mice which gets too brazen then the dog retained a strategic edge. Using this strategic edge during a real conflict the dog can surprise the attackers when the dog suddenly starts using their faculties to their fullest extent.

Except that's only the case for attack drones.

If these are surveillance drones trying to find weaknesses in our radar and comms then we should be destroying these things as quickly as possible.

I don't know how to respond to you. You just repeated the same thing.

If you do that, you destroy every surveillance drone you detect, then you just shipped your radar's specs to the enemy. Because you can not destroy drones you can not see. So every time the enemy's drone survives they know it is because it was small enough, or far enough, or stealthy enough to not be seen.

If you do that you might as well invite your adversary to the proving ground and currier them the design specifications.

I know this isn't a useful position to have on a discussion board, but I honestly don't think any of us are privy to the required information to even have a useful discussion about this and the whole conversation probably would play as a joke to people who are actually involved in the situation.

That was exactly my thought when I saw this. There is no good move (for the usa) that doesnt show your hand, and no need to play. No one on hn will know the whole story for a long time and by then few will care.

So you develop a new anti-drone measure. Opponent drones comes in, you light up your brand new anti-drone measures, opponent drone gets telemetry, beams it out before it gets blown up. Opponent repeat it enough times, develops counter-measures to your anti-drone measures.

You're now back to square one.

If you deploy this anti-drone measure anywhere else, your opponent now knows how to counter them wherever you deploy them until you find a new way to counter it.

This is exactly what US and Russia did in Cold War I. Probe, see responses, hope that they won't blow you up, develop counter responses. Repeat.

> The US is the masters at this

In 1968, my dad spent a year at Galena AFB in Alaska. This was the closest base to the USSR. Their entire job was to counter the Soviet incursions. The Red Air Force was constantly testing and probing and provoking the US air defenses.

The usual thing was the Soviets would send over a bomber. Once they got close enough, Galena would send out a fighter or two to snuggle in close and let the bomber know that we saw 'em and we'd bwast 'em if they came any closer.

It was the cold war, and that's how it was played.

We did/do the same thing to them I believe. There’s no one side playing nice in this, but hopefully everyone behaves in a way where a Nash equilibrium is the best outcome.

It's not about warm and cuddly. It's about everyone understanding the ground rules. When there were incidents like the Cuban missile crisis it was because the ground rules weren't clear to all the players. The Soviets didn't think the US would react the way it did. In the Able Archer crisis we didn't understand the Soviets would react to NATO exercises as if it was preparation for nuclear war. I think we exist today is mainly down to the fact that for most of the Cold War, everyone understood what was in bounds and what wasn't.

I give Kennedy credit for being the 2nd greatest American President because he averted nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Definitely lucky that there was someone like Kennedy in charge instead of someone like Nixon. I think the scariest part of the crisis, is neither the Soviet or the US leadership knew how close we were to going over the edge. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/10/27/23426482/cuban...

"The end in this case meant not just the fate of the submarine and its crew, but potentially the entire world. Cut off from outside contact, buffeted by depth charges, its air conditioning broken, and temperatures and carbon dioxide levels rising in the sub, the most obvious conclusion for the officers of B-59 was that global war had already begun. But the sub had a weapon at its disposal that US officers didn’t know about: a 10-kiloton nuclear torpedo. And its officers had permission from their superiors to launch it without confirmation from Moscow.

Two of the sub’s senior officers wanted to launch the nuclear torpedo. That included its captain, Valentin Savitsky, who according to a report from the US National Security Archive, exclaimed: “We’re gonna blast them now! We will die, but we will sink them all — we will not become the shame of the fleet.”"

lol, nixon? the guy who withdrew from vietnam? did you mean johnson?

I talking about the guy who told his aides to tell world leaders he was mentally unstable and might nuke someone for fun. The guy who put staying in office over the health of the country until there was no option for him.

yes, if there's one thing richard nixon was known for it was radically disproportionate military response, such as the time he nuked china

While Kennedy had certain patriotism about him and cared for the country despite some questionable stuff (like his dad's business and appointing his brother as AG) he did have some medical conditions which necessitated some significant medications which affected his mood, thinking and judgement. It's no wonder the deep state disliked him so much.

Nixon had many incidents where he got very drunk and would get on the phone to important people and tell them to nuke, like, whoever he felt like at the time.

(I'm not sure that's not a joke.)

It seems the credit actually should go to Vasili Arkhipov.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov

That's the point of the cold war: management through deterrence, stated retaliatory policies, and diplomacy.

Cold wars are GOOD.

Cold wars are how you prevent hot wars, and also how you prevent powerful aggressive countries from annexing and colonizing people at will.

Exactly, deterrence is a guardrail preventing conflict. It's the most important buffer. The last thing you want is for one side to try their luck on an offensive move.

> When there were incidents like the Cuban missile crisis it was because the ground rules weren't clear to all the players. The Soviets didn't think the US would react the way it did

Missiles in Cuba were a USSRs response to US nukes in Turkey, so I am not sure I understand your point.

It's not about playing nice. It's about keeping the peace by demonstrating strength and willingness to fight. And it worked, the peace held. Showing weakness gets you killed.

> We did/do the same thing to them I believe.

Absolutely. One of the contributing decision factor in the shot down of the Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was just that.

"Aircraft from USS Midway and USS Enterprise repeatedly overflew Soviet military installations in the Kuril Islands during FleetEx '83, resulting in the dismissal or reprimanding of Soviet military officials who had been unable to shoot them down."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007

> And what exactly should be done about it?

Re-form the Treaty on Open Skies, which already addressed and solved this problem in the early 90s. You simply let the other country know that you are flying surveillance equipment overhead and the target country grants overflight.

It doesn't fundamentally change either sides ability to conduct surveillance operations, but it does avoid situations like this that may escalate to armed conflict.

We had a good thing going until the previous administration let Russia out of the agreement, enabling them to build up for the invasion of Ukraine.

> Re-form the Treaty on Open Skies

The Treaty is based on "allowing countries to openly surveil each other...to prevent misunderstandings" [1]. That has not panned out.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Open_Skies

I am pretty sure the Russian invasion of Ukraine has basically nothing to do with Russia leaving the treaty. That also happened under the CURRENT administration, not the previous one. The withdraw was in 2021.

> That also happened under the CURRENT administration, not the previous one. The withdraw was in 2021.

Yah, sure-- but are you being deliberately misleading? After the US announced withdrawal in May 2020 under Trump (in response to Russian violations of the treaty), Russia did leave in 2021.

This need to mislead about politics and events is so annoying. Arguably the Trump administration had good reasons to withdraw, but pretending that the Russian withdrawal was because of Biden is wack.

> This need to mislead about politics and events is so annoying

Agreed. The increasingly post-truth nature of public narratives is disturbing.

But I wonder what do you consider to be "good reasons" (even if arguably)?

> But I wonder what do you consider to be "good reasons" (even if arguably)?

If your counterpart in a treaty isn't following it much of the time, you need to consider:

* Whether the benefit you're getting from their partial / grudging compliance is more than the downsides of complying yourself.

* The symbolic benefits and costs of the treaty continuing to exist despite being ignored.

* The precedent that you set by tolerating violations of important treaties; you might be emboldening that counterparty, or other counterparties, to engage in further violations.

Basically, there has to be a credible belief that it's at least possible/somewhat likely you'll have a big reaction to a violation of a treaty for the treaty to remain effective. It doesn't mean you need to have a big reaction to any given violation.

> If your counterpart in a treaty isn't following it much of the time

Was this actually the case?

Google tells me that "much of the time" seems like 3 specific instances. One of which isn't even technically related to Russia, but rather to Georgian (now Ossetian/Abhasian territories), implying that these are Russian territories (lol), while on another instance blaming Russia for providing an airport in Crimea, implying that these are not Russian territories (LOL! Truly logically consistent)

The third instance of limiting flight over Kaliningrad oblast to 500km (total size about 15000 km^2, sqrt is about 150km) seems like the only one somewhat substantial.

On the other hand, I see Russia accusing the US of denying flights over its territory on a few instances and also denying access by its newer planes back around 2014

Seems like the whole deal was somewhat dysfunctional already, but not like a total disaster, really.

I've also managed to google Trump's rhetorics on the treaty with stuff like "force Russia to bring China to the table".

Overall, it seems to me like a total insubstantial political bullshit, but I guess perspective may vary.

> Yah, sure-- but are you being deliberately misleading?

How is what I said deliberately misleading? The claim was that Russia left the treaty before 2021, which is false. They also claimed it is the reason Russia invaded Ukraine, which there's no evidence to support. I also NEVER said it was -because- of Biden, no idea why you are even putting words in my mouth.

If I make a factual statement to refute someone else saying something false, that is misleading now? What kind of "post-truth" world are you living in? Not everything has to turn into a nuanced discussion, especially when someone is making a direct false claim.

If you want to get nuanced, it's important to note that both Biden and Trump agreed in leaving it, Biden could have rejoined it (he was even asked, and said no); he has joined other things like the Paris Climate Accord which Trump left for example. The general reason the US left is because other countries, mainly Russia, kept breaking the agreement.

> The claim was that Russia left the treaty before 2021

That was not the claim. The claim was the Trump administration "let Russia out of the agreement." Because the Trump administration left the agreement, they allowed Russia to leave the agreement without any further diplomatic consequence or scorn. It is hard to imagine any other action that "let Russia out of the agreement."

I am trying to assume good faith but this assumption is being sorely tested.

> The claim was the Trump administration "let Russia out of the agreement."

Which is false, because they left the agreement in 2021 on their own accord.

> Because the Trump administration left the agreement, they allowed Russia to leave the agreement without any further diplomatic consequence or scorn.

This was not the original claim made, this is goal post shifting for getting a fact wrong.

> I am trying to assume good faith but this assumption is being sorely tested.

Making false claims isn't "good faith."

> Which is false, because they left the agreement in 2021 on their own accord.

Yes... after the agreement was rendered meaningless by Trump's withdrawal, Russia did leave too.

> I am pretty sure the Russian invasion of Ukraine has basically nothing to do with Russia leaving the treaty

It has everything to do with the US leaving the INF treaty.

Also, your choice of words is rather curious, Russia had only left the Open Sky treaty in 2021 after the US had left it in 2019, which kind of made it rather pointless for the following 2 years anyway.

EDIT: whoops, not 2019, but 2020. Still, my point stands.

> It has everything to do with the US leaving the INF treaty.

If you could find any expert on this topic that says this is the case, I'll gladly listen; but you'll struggle to find one, at least one that isn't a hack or serial "whatabouter." Especially given the conflict dates back to 2014 and Russian "little green men" had already been in Ukraine since; not to mention Putin had been drumming up war rhetoric for an invasion years before he invaded in 2022, well before the US or Russia left the treaty.

Yeah, ok, I can definitely see that you already solidified your opinion and totally not interested, judging by all those "counterargument" traps you so carefully laid out beforehand.

Always love the "whatabouter" bit, btw. Some sure like to perceive the world as a set of unconnected pieces existing in a perfect vacuum. But whatever, your choice.

I just wonder, do you actually live in the same infobubble as Putin's "rhetoric"? My impression of it was along the lines of "no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-YES"

The US had extensive intelligence on Russia's build up for the invasion of Ukraine. President Biden publicly warned them not to invade several days before the actual invasion. The termination of the Treaty on Open Skies was not an obstacle to this type of intelligence gathering. Mechanized armies can't hide from satellites.

> President Biden publicly warned them not to invade several days before the actual invasion

Several days? This had been going on for like a whole year. All while Ukraine had been building up an army of its own near Donetsk.

This even became a popular topic for jokes in Russia.

Light 'em up.

You can't send huge flying things across another country's airspace without permission and flight plans.

I don't know, maybe the USA should start flying planes over Moscow and Beijing. How do you think they'd react?

I don't get what the pushback against blowing up a balloon would be.

If I was president, I'd make sure I'd be flying balloons over China all the time, see how they like it.

shit, they are getting pissy about ships being in the South China Sea.

Fuck China.

Do you honestly believe there are no, nor have there ever been, American spy drones and planes flying over Moscow/Beijing?

In 1960, "a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defence Forces"

It's ok to try, but expect your shit to be shot down if you're a dick about it.

Nothing happened when the U2 was shot down. But I personally am ok with the Soviet Union shooting it out of the sky.

Why should the USA do nothing when a balloon, by a massive military power and the USA's new competitor, fly over the USA without a polite, "Hey, do you mind if we fly this "weather balloon" with cameras over your military installations?"

I admit Americans have, and have been shot down. Why is it so weird the other way around? Why are you defending China indirectly by trying to equate it with the USA? If the USA gets shot down, why is that not mentioned by you and others? What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

And, China certainly is getting weird about not having people sail ships through the South China Sea, despite it being ruled as international waters.

Who says you aren't?

Googling with a date range filter set (to filter out recent Chinese balloon news) yields results like "Pentagon using spy balloons".

We'll have to see if China starts shooting down random civilian (or not) probes within a few months. Many countries try not to fuss about stuff other countries do to avoid unnecessary escalations and tensions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird

You think the US doesn't do that now? If you do, I'd like to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.

You left the important part out:

"a United States U-2 spy plane was *shot down* by the Soviet Air Defence Forces"

I have zero idea why people are defending China, while the USA gets their aircraft shot down. Each country has sovereignty over their own airspace.

And China is all weird about not wanting ships in the South China Sea despite it being ruled international waters.

Why are you giving China a pass and holding the USA to different rules?

Outside of the handful that was shot down, including the ones that were operated by the ROC in the late 70s, all the major power that has the means of doing this, to probe defenses, be it coastal, or inland AA, or whatever, have done this.

Who says I'm giving China a pass? My point is that it's a balloon that was tracked from Alaska long before it crossed BC into Montana probably had its risk assessment done. It wasn't worth the hassle, and the potential risk of letting them get the telemetry on military hardware, and the cost to shoot one of those balloons; or to reveal the true operating envelope of a fighter and its armaments over a balloon that the US already was comfortable with it flying around from Alaska on.

If it was a serious threat to US national security, it would have been blown up over Alaska, or better yet, tell the Canadians to do it so that the risk isn't borne over American soil.

What you say may or may not be true, but it is beside the point.

The point is that the USA, or any country, has the right to deny it's airspace to anyone. There is no rule that just because we let it fly through Montana that means the USA has to let it fly anywhere.

There are all kinds of instances of the USA being denied use of another country's airspace. I'm not quite sure on the exact situation as it was a while ago, but I think during Gulf War I, or maybe II, Turkey would not let the USA take off from Incerirlick Air Base to bomb Iraq.

Ah, here it is,they closed their airspace for a while in Gulf War II - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/20/iraq.helenasmi...

It seems like you are giving China a pass to me.

>If it was a serious threat to US national security, it would have been blown up over Alaska

Nope. USA has the right to do it anywhere. We don't know the strategy. Maybe there was some global strategic reason or tactical reason, or who knows? Neither of us is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or are the Secretary of Defense. What do we know? All I know is that the USA can shoot down any aircraft, at any time, for any reason, if it doesn't file a flight plan and let the USA know the purpose. That I know. But you saying "If it was a serious threat to US national security..." is silly. You are not the Secretary of Defense. How would you know? Or anyone know, unless privy to that information?

That's how it works.

I am responding again today, one day after I left my other post under this response that I made to you.

Today, the House voted UNANIMOUSLY, 419-0, to condemn China's balloon surveillance program as a “brazen violation” of U.S. sovereignty, a rare and swift bipartisan rebuke of Beijing as questions mount about the craft the U.S. says was part of a vast aerial spy program.

“This resolution, I believe, sends a clear bipartisan signal to the CCP and our adversaries around the world that this action will not be tolerated,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

Are every single one of the House, D and R, wrong and you are right? I'm pretty sure the Senate would vote the same way.

"In a Congress riven by partisan splits, the shared anxiety over China's stealthy balloon surveillance program and the reach of the Beijing's global military and economic force provided an unusual opening for bipartisan agreement in the debate."

I am extremely interested in your response.

I am responding again today, I left another post to you under another post you made further down this thread..

Are every single one of the House, D and R, wrong and you are right? I'm pretty sure the Senate would vote the same way.

I am extremely interested in your response, especially your comment that pertains to the Brooklyn Bridge. Are you going to sell that Bridge to every member of the House? Everyone but you does not understand things?

https://news.yahoo.com/us-house-votes-condemn-china-16553744...

> And what exactly should be done about it?

Historically for a large preponderance of cases, absolutely nothing. By law of international treaty that the USA signed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Open_Skies

We've since left the treaty though, so now our own spy planes can legally be shot down when they fly over Russia.

Of course there are ALSO spy drones.

That's pretty flimsy against pilot reports though. Presumably they're reasonably up to speed on what is currently possible. Doesn't make sense that the USAF spends millions on training and omit that, especially given the high chance of encountering drones in future combat.

Yet despite regular incidents the pilots don't report these as drones. The only way that fits is if China/Russia is so far ahead drone tech wise that F35 etc pilots don't even recognise the tech as such. Seems like a stretch - US is doing reasonably well on tech...

This still seems squarely in the "unidentified" category.

I've talked about Ufos with a family friend, ex pilot for the French army who is now high ranked (responsible for all flights security, whatever this entails, while still doing mandated monthly flight hours) at a commercial flight company (got upgraded to business twice :)).

He told me he thinks most UFO sighting from military pilots are probably just a combination of tiredness, speed and high g hallucinating. But especially speed. The most UFOs sightings were by American pilots at the time the F14 and F15 were in service and at the time when breaking mach1, or even mac2 was done a lot more (when he retired he flew at mach1 for 10 minute during his yearly 120h).

Aren’t there sensor readings confirming the sightings?

I don't know much about the subject. For him it's mostly confusion over seeing smaller aircrafts at very high speed, and sometimes hallucinations (from high G or lack of oxygenation due to high speeds and poorly functioning masks).

His arguments are that it's mostly pilots from older aircrafts (and especially f14 and f15) who saw Ufos.

Tbh I don't care much about UFO, it was just a topic at the time because there was a crop circle made by students (they paid for the crops obviously). I didn't pushed much against him.

I see. The theory that they're hallucinations is unlikely to be correct because the UAPs register on different sensors: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelima...

> Most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects given that a majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation.

There is a false assumption that US pilots would be aware of most US produced spy equipment being deployed or tested by the US government in US airspace.

This is a very good take on the topic, and makes a key point: "people expect one blanket and grand explanation for the entire UFO mystery to one day emerge. This is flawed thinking at its core. This issue is clearly one with multiple explanations due to the wide range of events that have occurred under a huge number of circumstances."

There is a very high likelihood that Russia and China have been employing UAS's to gather intel on our training exercises, and they do not have to have cutting edge technology to do so.

Still tho, if they ARE visitors from space unknown, they'd still come to surveil these exercises because these exercises are (undoubtedly) the highest concentrations of interesting EM signatures to be found on this planet.

And by "they" I mean autonomous vehicles that could have taken decades or more to get here, and not "manned"/staffed vehicles.

I would be surprised if other countries weren't doing this. Spy tech is often bleeding edge and it wouldn't be difficult to smuggle some drones into the US. Or even build or modify a commercial drone here.

"Smuggle" in this case probably just looks like "put it in a FedEx box and mail it". I think you'd probably find it challenging to actually intentionally have a delivery of spy drones even looked at by a customs official.

Foreign packages are xray’ed, no?

Every package is screened in some way, but very few are x-rayed. They are looking for drugs, currency, stolen antiquities, stuff like that. It is hard for a lay-person to look at a collection of electronics and know if it is the guts of a VCR or an advanced spy drone.

I have this inkling that drones and balloons are normal espionage background noise these days and the actual offence was screwing up, getting caught, and forcing a performance of the face saving dance.

“Okay so you deny it. Then we’ll hum and haw. Then later we will shoot it down. And you can use that to save face with your people by condemning our barbaric violence or whatever you want to say.”

This looks like a job for Space Force! Seriously, in conjunction with whatever has replaced Aegis on naval warfare ships. Detect drones, and destroy them.

Aegis is alive and well: https://www.mda.mil/system/aegis_bmd.html

I do think this is more concerning than it would appear. I think the fact that this became a partisan food fight has forced this position that this wasn't a big deal on people who favor Biden. This is really about China since Xi took over. Executing CIA assets in courtyards in front of their colleagues, practicing missile strikes on models of US carriers, the repeated invasion of US airspace, the exercises near Taiwan after Pelosi visit. This is not good, and invading continental US airspace is ratchet up in brazenness. We need to have a national conversation about where this is heading. China under Xi is nothing like China 2000 through 2010. In the last decade some of the biggest China made blockbusters have been glorifying fighting / killing Americans (Wolf Warrior II and The Battle at Lake Changjin)

Edit for sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spie...

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-builds-mockups-us-...

You've got a point. I am not knowledgeable about this topic, but it seems to me that no matter what, the US will always be on a tougher position because any overreaction from them to a provocation could end badly for everybody, and it seems that China is well aware of it, and they play with such fact.

As an example: China sends a balloon to the US air space, any bold countermeasure in China's air space / territory means worldwide panic and potential war.

The example above is just a simple scenario that I am using to describe the position where the US is at.

I'm more concerned that there hasn't been a comprehensive analysis of where the situation is heading. It's like we're on autopilot without a strategy. If you look at experts on US China relations in the US and China, both sides basically agree we're heading towards war soon. We can't avoid war, if we just mindlessly react and go forward without a real strategy. All our lives depend on getting this right and hopefully steering to a place where we avoid war. It's not even a Cold War, the Cold War had guardrails. There are no guardrails.

I think we need to work out a common vision. How would a peaceful, happy and prosperous future for both the West and China look like? How can we cooperate in reaching this? How can we secure buy-in into this vision from the Chinese people?

At the same time their needs to be deterrence of course, but I think we are already doing that part.

All the West needs for peace with China is to stop following the US as it continually threatens China.

What would that common vision look like? The current Chinese leadership sees gaining total control over the first island chain (including Taiwan) as an existential necessity. Western leaders can't allow that.

A better solution is to constantly harass, undermine, and isolate China much like we did with the USSR. Apply enough sustained pressure and hopefully the country will eventually collapse into a violent internal revolution.

If Silicon Valley and Wall Street act like absolutely nothing has changed while the Pentagon ups the pressure militarily that's a scenario I'm afraid will lead to war. All segments of society must know the stake and be on the same page. The fact that one part of American society is pretending like nothing is happening while the other prepares for creates a situation that lacks clarity. This is how you stumble into it. Everything must be crystal clear.

US tech companies have been rapidly diversifying their supply chains to reduce dependence on China for about 2 years now.

When it comes to issues of national security, we rarely know what analysis has been done when we're on the outside looking in.

I mean this has to be a national conversation where all stakeholders are aligned. From tech to Wall Street, to Capitol Hill to Main Street. We're all just reacting now with our own interests at the moment but we're all stuck in the same boat. No one is going to escape the horror unscathed if we sleepwalk into war.

If there's war between the US and China, nobody escapes the horror period. Both nations have more than enough nuclear capacity to guarantee that.

We're not sleepwalking into war, we're threatening it.

Absolutely not. As long as every populace remains committed to their current borders, there is no aggression, and no war. This is what all people should want. There are no tangible benefits worth the cost of an invasion.

Russia broke this by invading Ukraine.

China is threatening to break this by invading Taiwan.

Right now, there is peace in Taiwan. If China launches an assault, that is China's fault and they're the cause of suffering.

In the event of a country interested in the annexation and colonization of it's neighbors (like with China and its desire for Hong Kong, Taiwan, Senkaku island, and so on), there are three options.

1. A hot war emerges due to it's aggression

2. The aggression is unchecked, effectively meaning the victims surrender to blackmail and/or violence

3. A cold war is put into place to prevent aggression through deterrence and other mechanisms to manage the situation to prevent escalation to a hot war.

My concern is that both Democrats and Republicans (and most other countries on earth) are not committed to a cold war and communicating that with the public. I'm far more concerned the US will surrender several more countries and territories to aggressive states before people realize what's going on and are ready to commit to a cold war to contain aggression.

We're currently occupying a third of Syria.

edit: "invading their neighbors" is a rhetorical trick to discount all of the invasions of the US against countries who are not our neighbors. Just like "killing his own people" is a trick to discount the killing of other people.

Just want to make sure I'm understanding you here: are you making the claim that the US should not have troops in Syria, even though they are there at the request of the people who are being terrorized by supporters of the Islamic State, and authorized by the UN to do so?

According to DW news[1], the US is in Syria for these 4 reasons:

> Firstly, they were there to sustain the fight against the extremist IS group. This includes helping to train and arm the Syrian Kurdish fighters, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, who fought the IS group and who now control this part of Syria. The US regularly warns that the militias it supports here may only fight the IS group, unless they are acting in self-defense.

> Other American priorities in Syria include supporting local ceasefires, stabilizing the area and helping with humanitarian aid and access, as well as "pressing for accountability and respect for international law, while promoting human rights and non-proliferation."

> All of these are supposed to help in achieving a political solution to the ongoing Syrian crisis, as set out in Resolution 2254, agreed upon by the UN Security Council in 2015.

1. https://www.dw.com/en/what-does-the-us-actually-want-in-syri...

I'm sure that there has been comprehensive analysis in the Pentagon and State Dept. As for the prospects of war with China: Given the current context with Russia's war on Ukraine, how does war with China not escalate into WWIII pretty quickly? I don't think either side wants that - it would completely decimate both economies were it to happen. China would lose the US market and the US would lose a lot of Chinese products that are necessary (we're not de-globalized yet)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion

"In The Great Illusion, Angell's primary thesis was, in the words of historian James Joll, that "the economic cost of war was so great that no one could possibly hope to gain by starting a war the consequences of which would be so disastrous."[4] For that reason, a general European war was very unlikely to start, and if it did, it would not last long.[5] He argued that war was economically and socially irrational[6] and that war between industrial countries was futile because conquest did not pay. J. D. B. Miller writes: "The 'Great Illusion' was that nations gained by armed confrontation, militarism, war, or conquest."[7]

This book was published in 1909, it was wildly popular.

Could anything other than China invading Taiwan precipitate war between the US and China? I doubt it (though sure, 'accidents' could happen given the current level of bellicosity). However, if China does invade Taiwan the whole economic argument seems to go off the table from the US perspective because Taiwan's fabs crank out the majority of the world's most advanced chips - ie. that act of invading Taiwan would in itself do a lot of damage to the world economy were it to happen within the next couple of years (before other fabs currently under construction come on line in 2 or 3 years).

But then again, China has to know the stakes and the response (both economic and military) that would come to bear against them should they invade Taiwan.

In a crisis spiral into war, I think the last thing that will be considered are chips or economics. It's often emotion that pushes everything over the edge. It's not a logical process. Nationalism is a force that operates on its own set of rules.

Two points.

First, there certainly are analyses (plural) of where the situation is headed. They aren't published places that you and I are allowed to read, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. People are thinking seriously about this, and debating, though I have no idea what conclusions are being reached or what courses of action are being suggested.

Second, this is fundamentally about Taiwan. And that isn't "we're headed for war soon". That's "we're headed for war if China invades Taiwan, and China sure looks like they're going to invade Taiwan soon". That's Xi's choice; all we get is to decide how to respond. (Well, a bit more - we get to signal in advance how we're likely to respond, and hope that Xi decides it isn't worth it.)

Blimey.

Those films:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_at_Lake_Changjin

> CNN noted that the film was commissioned by the propaganda department of the Chinese Communist Party, while Business Insider and The Economist said that the movie was part of a "main melody" genre of entertainment that praises China, the Chinese Communist Party, and the People's Liberation Army.[53][54][55]

It doesn't say whether Wolf Warrior II was commissioned by the propaganda wing, but it stars some of the same actors.

I mean this is China, it's not like there is a free media market. There is no way you could make that movie without high level officials wanting it.

Nobody has a free media market. China isn't unique in this. You think Top Gun, ww2/holocaust movies, etc are from a "free media" market? You think all the anti-japanese, anti-soviet, anti-chinese, anti-muslim, etc media during the past 100 years was from a "free media" market? The media is how you control the population. You think the elites don't control it?

Everyone accuses china of copying and stealing from the US. Looks like they are copying hollywood.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gun:_Maverick

That movie went way out of its way to obscure what country they going against. It definitely did not say the antagonists were Chinese.

That movie, like most American military action movies, was done in partnership with the US government, which was given approval on the script. I would ask why Chinese propaganda is painted as oppressive and heavy-handed when we're doing the exact same thing through government programs that are old enough to collect Social Security.

I didn't call out those movies because the state was involved, it's because they glorified killing and fighting Americans.

Those programs are also bad.

There is also a difference between approving a script portraying the military, and literally commissioning a movie.

And I think everyone can agree that such a difference exists, even though both are bad.

What country do you think was vilified by that movie?

No country was vilified by Lake Changjin, either. A country that invaded Korea and killed a lot of people to keep them from becoming Communists was depicted.

Right... "The film ends with the caption: "The great spirit of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid (North) Korea will eternally be renewed! Eternal glory to the great martyrs of the People's Volunteer Army!" "

Are you pointing out that China calls the US invasion of Korea "The War to Resist US Aggression," or are you trying to say that our propaganda is more subtle? We literally dedicated Rambo II to the heroes of the Afghanistan mujahideen.

Haha I'm not defending US propaganda at all, but it’s just silly to say that the CCP is not trying to vilify the US and rouse nationalist sentiment against the US with this and related films.

You do realize that North Korea first invaded South Korea?[0]

And because the US was able to defend South Korea from a communist takeover, but failed to prevent Vietnam, South Korea's GDP per capita is $35k while Vietnam is $3.7k, an almost order of magnitude difference. North Korea's fate was even worse...

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Course_of_the_war

I don't think we have enough common ground to have a productive discussion here. Even notwithstanding the historical inaccuracies and fabrications in the movie, the musical cues and wanna-be "Triumph of the Will" cinematography when American characters are introduced all scream "villain" to me.

Those who haven't seen the movie can watch this clip and decide for themselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmBjkb-r8Fw

Check out the recent book Danger Zone by Hal Brands. I do think there's a growing consensus that this belligerence is a near-term problem even if it's been slow to develop.

Yeah the situation at the moment is very bleak, it's like watching a slow motion train wreck.

China isn't surrounding the US with its military and making weekly threats.

Not making weekly threats to the US, maybe. Does Taiwan count? If not, why not?

For starters Taiwan is not the 51st state.

FWIW, China's neighbors in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines don't appear to share your characterization of the situation. Neither do Australia, India, or Indonesia.

China has a lot more neighbors: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and Tajikistan.

> FWIW, China's neighbors in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines don't appear to share your characterization of the situation.

All those countries have been invaded and/or occupied by the US. The US is the brutal foreign colonizer in asia, not china. China didn't nuke japan, the worst act not only in ww2 but in human history. The US did.

> Neither do Australia, India, or Indonesia.

Australia is for obvious reasons. India joined the SCO. Notice how nobody talks about "the quad" or indo-pacific anymore? And Indonesia is part of Belt and Road. Australia is historically more of an enemy of India or Indonesia than china is.

The fact of the matter is that most asian nations don't want to antagonize the biggest racist bully in the region - the US. Once they get strong enough, things will change. Everything we project onto china, we are guilty of. It's amazing how the white supremacist nation that butchered and brutalized tens of millions of asians are made to be the good guys.

If china is such a threat, why don't we let these countries get nuclear weapons. Then they won't need our protection. Oh that's right, we dare not let these countries get nukes because the first target on their list would be the "good guys". Who sanctioned india when india went nuclear? Certainly china right? Nope, it was the "good guys".

> the fact that this became a partisan food fight

It has not become a partisan food fight. Both parties are whipping up anti-Chinese nationalism in their bases in order to support their next provocation, and the best method to install a belief into those hyperpartisans is to convince them that their counterparts on the other side are opposed to that belief. Republicans and Democrats are both convinced that Democrats and Republicans are dangerously soft on China.

"Republicans and Democrats are both convinced that Democrats and Republicans are dangerously soft on China."

Citation needed. For sure, Republicans are doing this.

Their messaging is so similar that I'm not sure what "this" you're referring to. Are you saying that Republicans are accusing Democrats of being dangerously soft on China, or that Republicans are being dangerously soft on China?

We're being dangerously soft on the ceos and shareholders that sent all the money there...

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