(I don't think this is realistic, just musing about other schemes that could be going on.)
e.g., if the dangerous substance in question was a gas mix for the balloon or cooling liquid for the payload, or "Whoops, how did those fruit fly capsules get in there and accidentally drift over California?!"
I'd say the balloons are chosen for a reason. Send surveillance craft over the USA and a huge percentage of the population would see it as an intrusion. Let balloons float over and some of the population will be: just weather balloons, we're wasting missiles; I haven't seen the balloons so they're making this up so China looks bad; what if the wreckage lands on a school, etc. Surveillance and destabilisation, is my guess.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/how...
Any airliner is a flying object full of dangerous chemicals, flammable and toxic.
The original question was about a balloon filled with a dangerous substance, not civilian air traffic.
Civilian air traffic is regulated by the Chicago convention, and shooting it down would be undoubtedly be the responsibility of the nation shooting it down.
The difference is largely one of consent. Nations have the right to control what happens in their air space. But if they consent to civilian air traffic, then shoot down an aircraft that nation is responsible.
If they consent to a balloon filled with dangerous substances in their air space and then shoot it down, then the nation is responsible.
If they *do not* consent to the balloon filled with dangerous substances and shoot it down, then the originating party is responsible.
But it still comes down to consent. If it’s not there at the consent of the host nation (either specific to that situation or via the Chicago convention), then the host nation has every right to take the object down, and the originating party bears most of the moral burden of the situation.
Now, I’d still want the host nation to act as responsibly as possible (for example, the US not shooting down the original balloon over land due to risks to people on the ground).
I still think the jump from the original moral scenario of “no human on board balloon with a potentially plausible argument for being there” to a “passenger aircraft full of people, clearly operating under the Chicago convention” is… quite the leap and really not fairly representative of the original question, and therefore quite unfair to hold to the people who answered the first scenario.
It feels like asking “who’s responsible if bomb disposal techs blow up abandoned luggage”, and then turning around and asking people who respond “Oh?! So what if those bomb disposal techs blow up a bus filled with people??” It’s just not close to the same scenario, to the point of feeling almost like bad faith.
"Article 5: The aircraft of states, other than scheduled international air services, have the right to make flights across state's territories and to make stops without obtaining prior permission."
Seems like you don't need permission for a flyover using a baloon because it's not a scheduled international service...
“No aircraft capable of being flown without a pilot shall be flown without a pilot over the territory of a contracting State without special authorization by that State and in accordance with the terms of such authorization. Each contracting State undertakes to insure that the flight of such aircraft without a pilot in regions open to civil aircraft shall be so controlled as to obviate danger to civil aircraft.”
Separately, Article 3 rules out a state from playing “I’m not touching you” games with a balloon:
“No state aircraft of a contracting State shall fly over the territory of another State or land thereon without authorization by special agreement or otherwise, and in accordance w ~ t hthe terms thereof.”
Where's the line drawn if the dangerous thing I mentioned before has a practical use? Maybe the balloon is filled with a mix that is toxic to something (crop, livestock, etc). Or there's a component of the payload that is dangerous when hit by a missile or making contact with the ground?
I'm guessing China sees this all as low risk research and nothing more exciting than that, but just trying to imagine what else might be going on, or come next. (I'm not anywhere near either China or the US.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007
There may be airlines with slogans like "come fly the friendly skies", but entering controlled airspace without a flight plan or 2 way comms with ATC is anything but friendly. You can try it yourself! Rent a C172 and do some sightseeing in Washington DC. When you get shot down, they will blame you.
That might seem absurd, but I believe a lot of countries have made a similar argument for pollutants and waste they dump into the air or water. It took decades for instance to get Canada to stop dumping (literal) shit in waters that end up in Puget Sound [1].
A kind of negative of this arises too, when someone takes something out of the atmosphere or water that passes through their territory and someone downstream had been using that thing.
Generally countries don't really do well when it comes to shared resources like atmospheres and oceans and rivers as far as what happens when one does something involving that resource in their territory that affects it in someone else's territory.
[1] https://www.king5.com/article/news/victoria-bc-will-finally-...
I can appreciate this is quite far fetched given that the material would need to drop such a distance rather than completely disperse with wind, and not be super obvious about it (e.g., pellets).
I won't elaborate as the topic is complicated.
The grey area I'm musing about is in the middle, and how some portion of the public might be sympathetic, how this might be destabilising, and what avenues the agitator might explore.
The bigger question to think about is the fear itself that led you to this question, the fear, the vulnerability and the anxiety you are feeling. Perhaps if americans weren't so frightened all the time there would be less wars?
'The bigger question to think about is the fear itself that led you to this question, the fear, the vulnerability and the anxiety you are feeling. Perhaps if americans weren't so frightened all the time there would be less wars?'
I'm not American. I live almost about as far from the US as it's possible to live on this earth and don't feel any anxiety about this. Just a curious observer.
I'm not sure what anxiety it is that you're talking about.
As an American, I'm not anxious or afraid "all the time." In fact, I'm generally relaxed and happy.
Sure, some folks have anxiety issues. But that's not limited to Americans, is it?
While more people in developed countries are prescribed anti-anxiety meds[0] than elsewhere, such folks are a small fraction (~5%) of the global population.
And so I'll ask you, of what exactly, do you think that Americans are "so frightened all the time?"
Listening to politicians blather on about "keeping Americans safe" and the like, which is pure theater that's designed to generate votes, is a poor idea if you want to understand how Americans actually think and feel.
These recent shoot downs are an excellent example. No one complained when similar balloons flew over the US before. Why? Because our military deemed them not to be a threat. And no one cared.
The Chinese surveillance balloon was deemed not to be a threat (as was alluded to in this week's public briefing of Congress) and even when it passed over "sensitive installations," countermeasures were put in place to mitigate any intelligence gathering.
That one group made a big deal about it (even though when this happened previously, they were (in closed session) briefed on the matter, and the public was none the wiser.
The difference now is that the public is aware of this stuff and rather than focusing on maintaining and strengthening national security, some folks are attempting to use this to win political points.
Shooting down the Chinese balloon was probably a good idea in order to better understand Chinese technology in this space, and knowing what the Chinese wanted to look at gives us even more information.
As such, jamming/restricting encrypted comms/camouflaging such sites (again as was alluded to by DoD representatives in an open committee hearing, with promises of more detail about that in closed session) and then taking the vehicle down in an area where civilians aren't at risk was smart.
Shooting down those other objects was a direct response (and serves the same purpose) to the political posturing about the Chinese balloon. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
[0] https://www.ihealthcareanalyst.com/global-anxiety-disorders-...