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Lukewarm Chinese balloon take [1]

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Date: 2023-02-09  

The key thing to remember about air defense is what goes up, must come down. Any missiles you launch or bullets you fire will hit the ground. Collateral damage is almost guarantied; it’s not like enemy aircraft only fly over unpopulated areas just to be sporting.

So let’s say you are a commander who has to make a decision about a flying object that isn’t where you would like it to be. Enemy bombers and planes hijacked by suicide terrorists would be what you would have shot down right away because the damage they could potentially cause heavily outweighs the damage caused by randomly falling debris. Like shrapnel will probably land on someone’s head, but let’s cross our fingers and hope that doesn’t happen.

On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes a Russian Bear bomber strays into Alaskan airspace. So in that situation, USAF fighters calmly escort the Russian bomber back to international waters. The consequences of shooting down a Russian plane can be dire. The last time a NATO power did that, Russia responded by selling that country surface to air missiles. Okay, crappy example. The point is that discretion is the better part of valor.

So an unguided balloon poses a dilemma: just ignore it, or meet it with overwhelming force? I can sit here and make a compelling case for either option. But Republican trolls saw an opportunity here: no matter what Biden did, they could insist that he made the wrong choice. They needed to focus people’s attention off of the fact that unemployment is at a 50 year low.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/9/2151885/-Lukewarm-Chinese-balloon-take

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