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Pentagon: Chinese Ship Captures US Underwater Drone Fom Sea (usatoday.com)
The Pentagon is demanding that China return an "unlawfully seized" underwater drone after a Chinese warship took the device from waters near a US oceanographic vessel. From a report on USA Today: A U.S. Navy underwater drone operating in international waters was captured by a Chinese warship in the South China Sea, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in a statement on Friday. The drone is not armed and is used for gathering weather and temperature data. The incident occurred Thursday. The drone was launched by the USNS Bowditch, a civilian crewed oceanographic ship that is operated by the Military Sealift Command, off the coast of the Philippines. These types of drones, called gliders, typically collect unclassified data, such as water temperatures and salinity levels. "We call upon China to return our UUV immediately, and to comply with all of its obligations under international law," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement, using the abbreviation for "unmanned underwater vehicle."
That would be better as a Haiku.
That's what winners do
They grab whatever they want
Grab by the pussy
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
This is what a slow motion train wreck looks like.
The Chinese will want the United States and Trump to lose face because of what Trump said about Taiwan. Because Obama is still in power, Trump will make fun of him for being a weakling in his response to China, whatever it is. Then, once Trump becomes President, he will have to respond in a way that escalates the problem, to differentiate himself from the "weak" Obama. China will do more of these types of actions to make Trump lose face. Trump will continue to escalate the crisis by tweeting insults to China, because Trump will rather start a war than lose face. Add to this the fact that the Chinese government needs to distract its population from its own failures and corruption, and what is better to do that than a potential war with the United States? This is a perfect storm of stupid, needless crisis, and it will end very badly.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
This is just the one of a long sequence of clearly illegal actions.
Why, because it violates the UN convention that governs autonomous vessels in international waters? Here's why I think it's a non-issue: if it's a civilian/research drone, the Chinese got nothing. If it's a military/intelligence drone with features or aspects that are classified... well, all is fair in love and war.
But rest assured, we are at war (as we always have been).
"China is very sensitive about unmanned underwater vehicles because they can track our nuclear ballistic missile submarines fleet," said retired Major General Xu Guangyu, a senior researcher at Beijing-based research group the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association. "If one from the Bowditch can be detected and even snatched by a Chinese naval ship, it shows it's getting too close to the sensitive water areas."