Re: Another American Spyplane about to land in a foreign country

[Robert "J." Hansen <rjhansen@xxxxxxxx>]

>        True, but what would be the repercusions of sending a tomahawk strike 
> into China?  That would piss them off.

It wouldn't just piss them off, it'd be an open and overt act of war.
Yes, the plane is US property.  However, the Chinese have some precedent
for doing what they're doing; after all, when Vladimir Belenko (?)
defected with his MiG-25, we sent it back to Russia in crates.  (But
Belenko was a defector, not a pilot of a wounded bird.  To the US, that
makes it totally different; to China, we're being hypocrites.)

Of course, during the Cold War there were times when Soviet spy planes
would have mechanical troubles.  In one occasion, a Soviet spy plane
over the Bering Sea had to divert to a US airbase for an emergency
landing.  The plane was held there for a few days while appropriate
parts for a Russian engine were shipped over, but the plane wasn't
searched.  The crew were treated as VIP guests, not prisoners, and were
not interrogated by US officials (although their rooms were most likely
bugged).  A few days later, the plane was fixed and the crew were
treated to a farewell dinner from their US hosts, and presto, off they
went.

The cordiality was due to the fact that even in the height of the Cold
War, the US and Russia had rules, of a sort, by which the Great Game was
played.  During the early days of the EP-3 crisis, the US was playing by
the old established rules, but China was insisting that new rules be
established.

Ah, well.  That's enough philosophizing for one email message.