[CoolGuySteve]

I suspect the language used by the USA/Canada concerning these devices is meant to obscure an uncomfortable truth.

These balloons are significantly cheaper to manufacture and operate than the stealth warplanes that are being used to shoot them down. Instead of manning AWACS and defending them, China could flood the airspace with thousands of these balloons and it would be too expensive to take them all down with our current technology.

By publicizing the F22 mission to shoot that balloon down, we kind of showed our hand and it's a really bad hand. Hence the obfuscating language now being used by officials on the matter.

[willis936]

I don't think Chinese military is so incompetent as to believe that the 1st response demonstrated is indicative of the nth response.

Besides, no one's going to run out of missiles, balloons, or money before this escalates in another fashion. This is a rather short stage, not an indefinite future.

[b112]

It's hardly a "bad hand". If this continues, look for the US, and the rest of the West, doing direct flights over all of China.

Eg, retaliation in kind.

There's zero difference, as said balloons could have any manner of nefarious purpose. Chemical/bacterial/viral, or just plain spying, airspace is airspace, protecting it is a thing, and China has the bad hand now.

What they were/are doing is well thought out, and technically a good way to spy. But the political aspect shows (again) just how poorly China understands the West.

To burn so much political capital, over so little gain, is immensely stupid, a diplomat's nightmare, and completely incompetent.

I feel for China, I do. A huge chip exists on its shoulder, it spent centuries bowing to the West. The betrayal during WWII likely still stings.

So it wants to flex, to be the big man, to strut its feathers, but wings made of wax only take you so far...

[dirtyid]

US already overflies what PRC considers to be her territory, if anything this is PRC retaliating in kind - state media had clip in 2020 of shooting down foreign ballon that landed in mainland but simply didnt make a big fuss over it. It's amusing people think PRC is burning political capital when these overflights will likely continue, there's no reason to stop prodding just because western media throwing conniption about their sovereignty getting violated in retaliation. It's more domestic political nightmare for US than international diplomatic nightmare for PRC.

[belter]

Shooting Balloons is the perfect task for the AN/SEQ-3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SEQ-3_Laser_Weapon_System

[nradov]

That weapon is only being deployed on a test basis. It is rather short ranged, unable to shoot through clouds, and too heavy for use on aircraft. But the next generation of laser weapons might be usable on tactical aircraft.

[mym1990]

I feel like at any kind of scale this would be an incredibly slow type of strategy. An F22 could have been used because initially the DoD had no idea what the thing was and if it was hostile, but as time goes on I really doubt that deploying F22s would continue to be the American strategy. The irony of this strategy is that the US absolutely LVOES to spend money and resources on defense, so this isn't exactly hitting 'em where it hurts.

[sebzim4500]

>These balloons are significantly cheaper to manufacture and operate than the stealth warplanes that are being used to shoot them down.

Not convinced this is true for the large balloon. The helium alone will have cost 6 figures, which is comparable to the cost of the flight time of the F-22.

Also, it's not like the US has a shortage of F-22s and air to air missiles.

[erredois]

I agree, and I would add the Iranian drones also add to this new facet of war equipment. The really cheap, effective and hard to deal.

[ericmay]

But what’s the end game? China floods the U.S. with these surveillance balloons and then…?

The US can retaliate in other ways, sanctions, actually bombing China or perhaps the factory making these, going to war, etc.

The US can also easily develop a weapons platform to destroy these balloons.

[foverzar]

> actually bombing China

The US can't bomb anything that has air defense.

[species9606]

The US bombs the air defense, then it bombs whatever else.

[ericmay]

That’s obviously incorrect

[foverzar]

Has the US ever bombed a country with a GOOD air defense?

Aerial warfare (which is the US doctrine) is hard to conduct when there is a proper air defense. I'll be happy to be proven wrong by a specific example.

[ericmay]

> The US can't bomb anything that has air defense

Now it's:

> Has the US ever bombed a country with GOOD air defense, give a specific example

You should probably provide a timeline because I would just give examples from World War II or something and that would effectively "prove you wrong".

But my response was to your initial statement that the US can't bomb anything that has air defense, which is incorrect, as you know. Secondly you are probably thinking about bombing strictly in terms of aircraft bombing things, but you're neglecting that the US can launch missiles and take out air defense elements and so wondering whether the US can bomb a country with good air defense probably isn't the right question to ask because the US would destroy the air defense elements and then bomb the country.

But even so, yes the US can bomb a country with good air defense because the US has developed weapons platforms that can do so.

[foverzar]

> Now it's

Oh, don't get snarky. "Functional" air defence, whatever. It's just worth to filter out anything with the kind of air defence that's just dude with a machine-gun shooting in the air or something that wasn't operational or whatever.

Providing an example is always good for a substantial discussion.

> You should probably provide a timeline because I would just give examples from World War II or something and that would effectively "prove you wrong".

I don't suppose it's worth discussing anything that cannot be relatively safely considered as "modern warfare".

> which is incorrect, as you know

I don't, that's why I am asking.

> the US can launch missiles and take out air defence elements

Air defence is kinda also supposed to protect from missiles.

> the US has developed weapons platforms that can do so

Are you implying hypersonic missiles? They are relatively new and poorly tested, not even in serial production AFAIK.

[xattt]

I realize that military types have thought long and hard about this, but are balloons not a great target for directed energy weapons?

[eagleinparadise]

Guess what, the US military will develop even better balloons in a short amount of time.. if it's so easy, cheap, and effective.

[molotovh]

Yes, but where does the US launch them? China can launch a swarm of these from the Pacific and guarantee they'll overfly the US and Canada due to the jetstream. Where can the US military launch a counterswarm that won't have to overfly a bunch of other countries with unaligned military strategies? All that does is create a negative diplomatic situation with those countries, and they'll likely shoot them down before they reach China.