I think the gap was because we did not have any way to bring down the balloon from 60k' in a controlled way so it could be grounded right after it was detected. All we had was fighter jets with missiles, so had to wait until over water. But as @boneh3ad says, part of that wait may have been useful as well.
There is the issue that the US has not been detecting them. It is not clear if this has been addressed or if the US was just lucky this time. This has counterforce implications.
If it is such a threat just shoot it down. Big airplanes crash at high lateral speed and usually do little human damage unless over a city.
Now would seem to be a good time to apply!
From https://business.defense.gov/Work-with-us/Guide-to-working-with-DoD/Now would seem to be a good time to apply!
Who is terrified? The Chinese sent a spy device and violated our airspace.
Not according to Leon Panetta - former secretary of Defense
I haven't seen whatever he said. I suppose you could put a nuke on a balloon and it would be harder to detect but easier to shoot down than an ICBM.
What I said: We use low-power communications to coordinate our nuclear weapons system. We use low power specifically so satellites can't detect those communications. A balloon is at much lower altitude so it could detect those signals.
Hopefully the payload will be intact enough to determine the motive.
Okay, okay, we got this folks. I've been doing a little research, and we can put together a PF Team that can be available at a moment's notice if this happens again.
I think we need someone to jump wearing a jet pack, to get the last bit of altitude.
We can send Brady. He is currently available and an expert in deflation.
I'd ask for a source, but if you had one you probably couldn't share it. But honestly, it would be stupid to use lower power over-the-air comms to communicate short distances over the terrestrial US. Coax or fiber would work just as well, and be immune to over-the-air sniffing recon.
No, I heard it in an interview. If you need to make a fuss I'll try to find a source. I said I heard it from Leon Panetta. I didn't mean personally.
Sorry to make a fuss, but why in the world would you broadcast secure comms over short distances (low power) even using highly directional dish antennas when you could use secure fiber or coax? It just doesn't make sense to me.No, I heard it in an interview. If you need to make a fuss I'll try to find a source. I said I heard it from Leon Panetta. I didn't mean personally.
I didn't contradict that. I contradicted an idea earlier in the thread that balloons aren't a concern because China has nukes, which are scarier. The key idea is the threshold for use of a nuke is almost impossibly high. Not so for a balloon.
The distances between silos are usually quite large. Cables like that would probably be vulnerable to sabotage. There's no perfect solution.
I'm lost. Use to do whaT??
Just general use. The threshold for actually using a nuclear weapon is that the country basically needs to be facing an existential external threat thanks to mutually assured destruction.
I found your comment in post #71 weird/confusing too. You seemed to be asking why we should be concerned about balloons when they have nukes. One thing has basically nothing to do with the other....and could be applied to any aggressive action they take. Why should we worry about fighter intercepts in international airspace when they have nukes? Why should we be worried about harassing Filipino fishing boats when they have nukes? They really are totally unrelated.
And it would be stupid to try and listen at the receiving end. The transmitting end woule be better, and there are an infinite number of equally good or better positions.
I know it is a tangent to this thread, but... what nitwit decided that "we" wouldn't have a feel for "a mile" and thought "15 football fields" was more meaningful? Right after the "three buses" ? Just stupid.
Don't worry to much.
About 30 years ago I did some consulting with an aerospace sub-contractor that was developing a plane-to-plane and plane-to-ground comm system for the air force. The degree of simultaneous sophisticated encryption techniques (seemingly random frequency-shifting, etc) was amazing. I doubt that even knowing the kind of techniques used would be all that helpful, and this was 30 years ago. Undoubtedly better now.
Meanwhile, the Russians continue to talk to each other over commercial, unencrypted radios in Ukraine.
The ineptitude of the Russian military has been a source of considerable surprise to me, and likely to others. I never thought they would be able to stand against NATO forces if it ever came to that, but I did not suspect they were so thoroughly incompetent.