The bizarre secret behind China's spy balloon
www.cbsnews.com
Earlier this year America's military defenses were put on notice against a Chinese balloon believed to be on an espionage mission. Gen. Mark Milley talks about what we've learned from an examination of the balloon's wreckage.

Nobody could have predicted this. I have my doubts even when they call it "spying equipment" or whatever considering Chinese claim it was a meteorological balloon, certainly no doubt they would try to paint those tools as such.

      • KarlBarqs [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        10 months ago

        And in the immense wave of paranoia afterwards they shot down three American weather balloons at the cost of 400k per missile plus fuel and maintenance and man hours.

            • Chump [he/him]
              ·
              9 months ago

              Not sure which balloon she’s referring to, but I imagine it’s the one from the Illinois bottle cap and balloon club (or whatever it’s actually called, they took the name lovingly from the movie Up). No one ever explicitly confirmed that’s the balloon that got got… but literally every piece of evidence points to one of them being theirs. Hobbyist balloon club, so at least no weather data was destroyed!

        • dRLY [none/use name]
          ·
          10 months ago

          They love to talk all that shit about "our missiles are so accurate that we can hit a ladybug" or some such level of nonsense. Which all of a sudden goes away every time that it is shown how many more people were killed while trying to get one person.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]
            ·
            9 months ago

            Turns out they can only hit a ladybug because the heat from the blast fries the bug even if the missile misses by a wide margin

    • Teekeeus [comrade/them]
      ·
      10 months ago

      additionally, didn't they shoot down actual hobbyist balloons with similar missiles?

    • quarrk [he/him]
      ·
      9 months ago

      The DoD is the world's largest employer with 2.9 million employees as of June 2022. Besides its direct function of projecting US power, it is also functionally a jobs program. The US is ideologically prohibited from handing out money for free via welfare programs, they must maintain the ideology of capitalism, by creating pointless work by which these people can "earn" the money. It is of zero consequence that each missile costs so many dollars. The whole point of its manufacture was to pay the workers and to allow the military-industrial capitalists to skim excess off the top of this waste. It's a sham but it is a little more complicated than just lighting $400k on fire. That money was already spent, and they want these missiles used in order to justify their replacement. As an additional benefit, each of these 2.9 million employees is heavily propagandized by the state department every day at work.

      Long-term, it benefits the US if the industry and its warfighters are permanently ready to fight a war.

      I don't agree with any of it btw, just adding some context.