what if the “Chinese Balloon” had carried a NUKE?
The EMP would have set it such that we would be pretty much shut down as a nation. No telephone, no internet, no cell phones, nothing.
And Biden and the Air Force failed to even try and stop it.
I mean, WTF? Forget the spying aspect. The other security aspects of the failure to stop the thing are incredible and demonstrate an epic failure here.
And, as ERJ NOTES, until Biden was prez, no other president has let the CHINESE fly unmolested over the US.
What if it carried Wuhan bats instead of a nuke and released them based on GPS location data. What if now that it’s been shot down we’ll never be able to recover the evidence of that?
At the altitude the balloon was at the area affected by such a device would have been less than 1000 miles in diameter. It would take several of these coordinated correctly to take down the entire grid. Not that such a thing couldn’t be done. And sending these balloons across the country allows for China to ‘map’ the Jet stream making such an act easier.
To take out most of the CONUS with a single EMP would require it be detonated above Kansas at an atlitude of well over 100 miles….much higher than a balloon can travel. Such an act would require a ballistic missile triggering launch detectors and perhaps an immediate strategic response. Using balloons like this could get the job done with ZERO warning.
And you don’t think an EMP footprint of a thousand mile circle in the center of the country wouldn’t severely screw up communications infrastructure??
I think you have the altitude wrong as well, but lets say you are right. a thousand mile circle of EMP damage in the center of the country leads to at least no internet coast to coast and likely power line connected equipment damaged even farther than the thousand miles. LOTS of chaos for a few weeks.
As a prelude to a further attack, it is a really good start, doncha think? The economic damage alone would be tremendous, much less the psychological.
Not sure what it would do to the military, but the rest of us would be very unhappy….
Yeah, but…
I’d hate to think how big a balloon you’d need to get a nuke warhead of any utility up.
Probably make the Goodyear blimp look humble in comparison.
Dropping a nuke would preclude launch warnings though, but with near-zero control over placement.
As for intel, they already have satellites. What could be gleaned by the balloon would be negligible.
BTW, sometimes you “pretend’ to “not see” the enemy when they think they’re sneaking around, because
a) you want to see what they’re up to, and
b) you don’t need to tell them how sensitive your detection apparatus is
c) you’re collecting more intel on them based on what they’re looking at, and how they go about doing it, than anything they think they’re getting by doing it.
Talk to anyone who spent any time in submarines or SAC-NORAD from 1946-1990.
2000:1, this whole incident was a non-issue, at any level.
Bullshit.
A – “Dropping a nuke would preclude launch warnings though, but with near-zero control over placement.” A 5 to 10 KT suitcase nuke does not require precision, and would do 20 to 30 percent as much damage as a larger one with regard to the power grid, which would be bad enough.
B – “As for intel, they already have satellites. What could be gleaned by the balloon would be negligible.” How do you know the balloon did not have commercial scanning equipment for non secure radio traffic? It was moving far slower, which allowed for far more collection time.
C – “BTW, sometimes you “pretend’ to “not see” the enemy when they think they’re sneaking around, because
a) you want to see what they’re up to, and
b) you don’t need to tell them how sensitive your detection apparatus is.” Seriously? is this your perspective on the overflight? if we had done the same thing with a balloon to China or Russia, they would not protest through the UN.
There’s no payload that balloon could have carried that couldn’t be delivered simpler and easier by driving it up from Mexico in a rental truck, or hauling from any seaport in a trailer rig, in plain sight. And probably has been already, since years and years ago. Ponder that for maybe two seconds.
For recon, we don’t need balloons. If you didn’t know we’ve been overflying China and Russia and any other damned place on the planet we wish to non-stop from any day since 1958 to five minutes ago, I can’t help you.
Or did you really think we “retired” the SR-71 in the 1990s, without replacing it with something far, far better…?? Like Mach 6 and better.
Sweet Christ, man, the word on that has been out in open sources for thirty-plus years. Srsly.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-04-17-me-607-story.html
Now imagine what we’ve developed and deployed since then.
The only advantage that the balloon has (and it has many disadvantages as well) for delivery of a nuke is height, for the EMP and the better dispersion due to the altitude.
But it is an advantage.
Only over the truck delivery option.
IIRC, they couldn’t get a warhead to optimal EMP altitude without an ICBM launch. (To something like 100 km (or miles) altitude, either one far beyond what a balloon will ever reach, with a useful payload. The Red Bull space jump was at 128K’ or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvbN-cWe0A0
I’m sure the Chinese gained something from the balloon overflight.
I just doubt it was anything we didn’t gain more from by watching them try it.
Which was why we never said anything about it until this trip.
Interesting deflection, A. I know better than you think what has been smuggled across the south border for the last 30 years, so stick that in your crawfish boil with some McIlheney’s Green.
And consider this if you truly want me to Respect you in a discussion.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=248028
As usual, Deninger assumes a lot of facts not in evidence, and then charges off in all directions to tilt the windmills he made.
Watch The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!, and substitute Deninger for Fendall Hawkins, and you won’t go far astray.
If we’re going to go assuming, let’s assume this wasn’t the first such flight, and that there were reasons we didn’t blow the whistle until this time around.
Then ask yourself why that would be so, and see what you come up with.
Told ya so.
https://coldfury.com/2023/02/14/the-great-game/
This makes perfect sense, and only begs the question “Why say anything about this this time?
“what if the “Chinese Balloon” had carried a NUKE?”
We would have been nuked….
Next question
Aye
Why did Biden let it fly over all the US, then shoot it down? Because his real name is Zhao Baidin, wholly owned subsidiary of Xi Jinping.