[LINK] OT: Spie in the Sky

[Roger Clarke]

Crikey had a headline 'Spy in the Sky' for its "deep" take on the
Chinese balloon incident this week.

My take was different, hence 's pie not spy.  The US over-reacted, as
hawks tend to do.  Then they got nervous about the risk of the balloon
coming down (as distinct from going up) and word getting out that it was
basically, um, a lost weather balloon.  Egg doesn't look good on hawks'
faces.  So they waited until it was over water before they knocked it
off, allowing the 'plausible deniability' ploy of 'we can't find {'00s
of kg of} kit in all that deep water full of sharks and hurricanes'.

Note that I'm not saying that there was necessarily little or no spy kit
in the balloon's payload.  I'm saying that the US hadn't been able to
get any hard evidence that there was (e.g. emanations consistent with ET
phoning home), and started getting nervous that there wasn't.  Their
nervousness would only have been increased by the usually blunt Chinese
playing all coy and embarrassed about losing control of a balloon.

Am I being unduly cynical?


-- 
Roger Clarke                            mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
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Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University