>

Well, fortunately, you're wrong. China and Russia kind of quietly hate one another, and China has nothing to gain by turning towards Russia and against the west. The economy would collapse overnight.
That's exactly right. I'm not sure what the pushback on this issue is? To me, it is plain and simple; they violated airspace, and could not retract the vehicle. Accident or not, it should be removed so it does not continue to violate the airspace. The move to wait for it over the water was to avoid collateral damage. 
I'm not sure what the controversy here is, aside from China crying foul. >

Theres no way you can spin it's presence in US airspace as accidental when the ground track plastered all over the news literally took it precisely over 2 US nuclear missile silo fields and Missouri where the B-2 is based. >

The balloon is unpowered, so I’m actually quite impressed that they managed to use the natural wind to make it fly over military bases precisely.
EDIT: By “unpowered” I was talking as an aviation term, which means the balloon is not primarily moved by a jet engine or a propeller. It may have propellers for course correction though as someone pointed out.
The power supply for the equipment is not what I was thinking about. >

They’re testing the water to see how the US reacts. >

That's secondary to the primary mission it had. The balloon had a gigantic payload of sensors and probably other equipment. It was so large that it could have, for example, been the largest ground-penetrating radar in the world. It could have analyzed all of the EM communications going on in order to analyze US communication networks to better understand them so that they can be hacked or jammed in the future.
There are a lot of things the balloon could accomplish that Chinese satellites could not. >

Now the question is if the US jammed the sensors so it couldn’t get/send the data it was collecting. >

Supposedly there were AWACS jets circling it all week jamming and/or listening to everything it was trying to transmit back to China.
I really don't think we would've let it fly over half the country if we didn't have reason to. It's not like it was difficult to shoot it down in the end, and if it was doing any real harm to us, we would've popped it over NYC if we had to. >

If collateral damage were the only reason they waited to down it, they could have just downed it over bumfucknowhere Alaska anyway. >

How about balloon wars? Each balloon gets fitted with a 6’ pokey thing that can pop the others. >

All those hours of Nintendo Balloon Fight finally pays off. >

You have been chosen as a champion to represent your country, are you ready? >

I feel like they only shot the balloon down due to the public making a massive fuss. Three of these flew over the USA during the Trump administration, and whilst I can't speak for his competence, I doubt Pentagon officials would have let it slide if it was actually anything to worry about. >

Yeah that's exactly what happened. The DOD doesn't really even give a shit about these things. Only had to react when the public found out and made a big deal out of it. >

The fact america bothered to shoot one down means ya done fucked up. >

It aint cheap to shoot either >

An Aim-9X (the missile used against the balloon) costs approximately 300k USD >

Brb, selling my home for a single AIM-9X. >

I don’t think you can live in it >

Who said anything about living? >

It's all about inserting. >

Seeker growl tone intensifies >

FOX TWO
good boy >

I haven't seen people this excited about a balloon since balloon boy. >

Balloon boy was way better. >

This whole incident is the weirdest song and dance by everyone involved. The US and allies have to pretend to be angry that China is spying on us (no one is actually surprised though) and China has to pretend to be angry that we shot down their "legitimate research" balloon, when we all know that the US is absolutely also spying on China and they would totally shoot down and/or disable our planes and satellites spying on them if they could. It would be much more shocking to learn that either or neither China or the US were spying/trying to spy on each other. >

yep, and it's weirder to see the feigned “anger” on the threads, even weirder to see the actual real enraged comments. almost like I'm dreaming. >

A lot are probably fake, if you think about it. Reddit has a huge spam bot problem. Sometimes you can't even tell because they just copy/paste 99% of a (presumed) real person's comments and posts, but insert spam in between so if you glance at the profile it looks real. Sounds like a huge conspiracy but if you google "buying reddit accounts", it's a huge thing with multiple marketplaces. Mostly for advertising, I thought, but... who knows when it comes to politics. >

What does a balloon get you that just flying around in a chartered jet wouldn't get you? It is not like US airspace is very restricted. It isn't like we are the Soviet Union in the 1950's. >

There are special used airspace that prohibits flights. A balloon can “drift” into it with the owner saying oops, not so much with powered flights >

And also the speed. By being a balloon it travels slower and in turn could potentially get more data than a faster moving object, but each have advantages and disadvantages depending on the circumstances. >

Oh boy the war hawks are flying high today yall. >

If China was a better country without border/territorial disputes balloons wouldn't matter. But since they regularly poke their neighbors like this as a means to manipulate and exert control over them, it is reasonable to use violence to stop it. China could get the west to shut up immediately if they wrote off Taiwan and redeployed their internal forces in ways that doesn't annoy Korea or Japan. They could do this entirely independently of the US and it'd severely harm US influence in the region, which would save them in their real struggle for influence in the South Pacific especially the Philippines, Vietnam and the Solomon Islands.
To use a direct analogy with the US: if the US stopped harassing Cuba with comparable deployments in Florida and the Gulf, people like Maduro, Lula and AMLO would receive Biden's diplomacy better. >

You know Canada and USA also have border disputes right? It's quite a normal thing around the world. >

All Border disputes are not Equal. Canada and Denmark's border dispute involved leaving alcohol. Russia and Ukraine's border dispute involves guns and missiles. Chinas involves ramming ships, which is nothing like the US and Canadas disputes. >

FYI, Canada and Denmark's border dispute has been resolved. We split Hans Island in two.
So Canada now has a land border with Europe. >

Which is a shame, where are they supposed to get free booze from now? >

Well we DO have a land border with Denmark. >

NK and Iran waste time and money on ICBMs when all it takes is balloon and knowledge of jet streams! >

As if this balloon incident is something new?
This shit has been happening for years.
The only thing that made this one different was media awareness
This is juat Taiwan reminding everyone how shitty China is, but the rest of the world already knows.
Too bad we invested all our manufacturing in China and have to play nice with them because  $$$$ >


The only thing that made this one different was media awareness

When and where did the other balloons fly over the US?  I see this being claimed... but where is the proof?  Hundreds of thousands of people were physically able to see this balloon but the balloons that flew over the US during Trump were what?  Invisible? >

If you can’t be bothered to read news articles you really shouldn’t be pretending to have an opinion. You can google just as well as anyone else. >

I did google.  There is no results that state where and when over the US they were seen. >

Because sometimes things are classified. If we put up paths and dates and times of everything we may reveal holes in our defenses to China. If you google it Forbes has an article that quotes the pentagon’s spokesperson. Typically if you don’t get concrete dates it’s for a reason >

As I said before, this balloon was visibly seen by hundreds of thousands of people... yet these other balloons flew over the US and were NEVER spotted by a single person outside of the government?  You seriously believe that? >

Use your common-sense for gods sake! So many complete idiots, just don't stop and think for two seconds! 
How one earth are hundreds of thousands of people going to see a balloon that's 60000 feet in the air? You can barely see a huge jumbo-jet at 20k feet, let alone a balloon a meter or so across at three times that altitude >

1 meter across? >

Even if two, three meters across you just can't see it with the naked eye
For reference a 747 is 72 meters long, more than twenty times the size
Again, basic mathematics is pretty helpful in life - Especially in filtering out bulls**t >

It has the size of 3 school buses according to sources. 
Basic research makes your “basic” math obsolete. >

Also it appeared to travel over the interior of Alaska, where there are important military bases. Likely spied on them too. >

The CCP can take a flying fuck at a donut. If they can't control their spy shit and it wanders over someone's territory, it deserves to get shot down. The fact that two happened at the same time on different continents just underscores the lie by china. >


can take a flying fuckbat a donut.

what >

I think the b is accidental >

Even then, what? >

Fuckat a donut. >

I think other countries should start sending balloons to China. See how they respond. I mean, you don't have to put anything in the balloons, just mess with them! >

Does anyone actually have (know), the exact path the balloon traveled? >

As it came into the CONUS, it lingered for a day or so over the Malstrom Air Force Base. Which is home to a major nuclear missile field. Then it changed altitude, caught the jet stream and moved down to near Kansas City and very close to Whiteman AFB, home to the B2 bombers. This is two important pieces of the "Nuclear Triad" of deterrence. The only piece missing would have been a submarine base. >

I guess that explains the rubber ducky that's been floating around King's Bay. >

I hope everyone is seeing the path where China, Russia, Iran, Belarus and “half of African countries which have been bought/obligated by China investment money” are turning step by step towards some kind of “Axis” forces. 
I truly hope I’m wrong but get ready for 2024.