Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon Acts Like They’re UFOs

Re:Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon ... by crazygringo on Monday February 06, 2023 @05:53PM (#34685690)

The article explains they could be collecting "extremely high-quality electronic intelligence data on... America's most capable air defense systems... that is very hard to reliably obtain otherwise. These radar emissions, and the datalink communications that go along with them, underpin highly networked counter-air architectures that are unmatched anywhere on earth. By gathering comprehensive electronic intelligence information on these systems, countermeasures and electronic warfare tactics can be developed to disrupt or defeat them."

That's the stuff you don't get from LEO satellites.

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Re:Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon ... by AnimalMuppet on Monday February 06, 2023 @06:38PM (#34686214)

I know that the Soviets had radars that were not normally on - they were only on when defending against an incursion or attack. I do not know, but I wouldn't be surprised if the US also had such radars.

If they're here to try to assess our air defense network, then a reasonable response is don't turn it on. Don't turn on the best radars. Don't turn on the data links from the air combat control centers to the air force bases (or to the planes in the air).

Sure, they can see the vanilla stuff better than they can from a satellite. But if the good stuff is off, they don't find out much about it.

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Re:Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon ... by crazygringo on Monday February 06, 2023 @06:40PM (#34686236)

You need to turn that stuff on in order to test it though. To run drills and exercises and make sure people are using it correctly and build experience with it. No?

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Re:Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon ... by AnimalMuppet on Monday February 06, 2023 @08:24PM (#34687236)

Of course. But you don't need to run those drills while there's a foreign surveillance drone in the neighborhood.

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Re:Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon ... by justsomehnguy on Monday February 06, 2023 @10:57PM (#34688586)

Search and acquisition radars. Or, most of the time, the same radars as always but with a lot more power. But more power => more noise for the neighbours, more heat, less operating time, yada-yada.

> don't turn it on

There is no need to? It was detected long ago and was followed both with radio and visually.

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Re:Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon ... by andy_ppp on Monday February 06, 2023 @06:01PM (#34685798)

There’s always an imagination that China is better than us at this and from reading between the lines at what the TLAs are able to do they aren’t even close.

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Re:Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon ... by crazygringo on Monday February 06, 2023 @06:09PM (#34685874)

I don't think underestimating your opponent has generally proven to be an effective military strategy.

If these spy drones and balloons exist, then you can sure bet they're doing something of value. Militaries don't design and fly these things for the fun of it.

And why are you assuming it's only a problem if they're better than us at it? We could be spying on them even more effectively, but that's not a reason to not prevent them from doing the same to us.

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Re:Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon ... by sidewndr46 on Monday February 06, 2023 @10:33PM (#34688403)

You're making the assumption that the intelligence apparatus of foreign countries is some purely rational actor. You can bet they are doing something of value, but that doesn't make the bet correct.

For all we know, China may have decided that every Baptist church is a possible nuclear launch site and that they all need to be priority #1 for surveillance. Particularly on Wednesday nights when all the folks in the surrounding community come in early in the evening and sometimes don't leave until late at night.

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