How is the Biden administration able to keep a straight face when pretending to be outraged over China's spy balloons?

I heard yesterday on the news that this is why we were hesitant to shoot it down, in addition to that it can be harmful to the populace and property. Since we have done it to China and others in the past, if we shoot it down it makes a precedence.

It’s all performative political posturing for effect.

Keeping a straight face, and playing diplomatic games, are political skills, which Biden has.

@Zaku Exactly. I wasn’t necessarily being critical.

I watched a video recently, making the argument that the Cuban missile “crisis” was also performative politics, because in reality, it would not have mattered one bit whether the Soviets launched a nuclear attack from Cuba, vs them launching it from Soviet Union territory. Neither could have been defended against.

@ragingloli – I think the difference between short, intermediate and long rang ballistic nuclear strikes was about two things (with the second being the FAR more important one):

1) Distributing risk (ie in order for a first strike to be decisive it must eliminate the nuclear triad of the target in one decapitating strike…which is already hard to do, but becomes even harder if missiles are geographically dispersed).

2) Response Time. If you have missiles in cuba, they take off and start landing on Washington DC hours earlier than if launches from Russia. This means less response time for orders and political chaos and response to take hold. Thus when the US put short range nukes in Turkey, the Russians viewed it as a first strike provocation, just as the Russian response of putting them in Cuba was viewed. And so Kennedy’s ultimate deal to get nukes our of Cuba was to take them out of Turkey…albeit to do so quietly months later so that it didn’t LOOK connected.

So to me, that situation is very different from this one. But in general, I’m glad pretty much everyone seems as skeptical of this being a big deal as I feel.

My concern is that China will now use this as acceptable policy for shooting down American satellites.

@filmfann Good point, but if we do nothing we look weak.

Now at least, we can take the thing apart and see if it’s a weather balloon or a spy device.

@filmfann This was in US air space at about 60,000 ft, not in space above 500,000 ft in orbit.

We kept it up there because we were playing with it. That thing was illuminated with so much jamming EMI it practically glowed. We also learned about their jamming and anti-jamming countermeasures – and, admittedly, they learned a little about ours.

We also learned who the full on liars/fraudster/Russian patsies are by watching their BS lies about how it was shot down in Montana or wherever. Some of those false videos are still circulating, so look quickly. Take note of who is perpetuating the lies.

Lastly we have documented proof that Don Trump Jr is an ignorant moron. (We already knew that but this nailed it.) Telling Montana yahoos to shoot it down with their guns was so stupid it is beyond belief. The highest they can reach is about 8,000 ft. and the slug will return to earth and maybe do damage somewhere.