It was near Antwerp in the north of the country and they didn’t go with “Flanders flounders as 5 drones buzz nuclear power plant” for the headline?!
So disappointed
Oh no!!! It’s the aliens from New Jersey again! They’ve given up on finding intelligent life in America.
Wish they’d be more precise. Are they armed drones? If not…who cares. If we’re just talking DJI knockoffs then even if they are piloted by russians I think we’d be better off ignoring them.
Are they armed drones? If not…who cares.
If they’re surveillance drones, it remains a concern. Very normal to scout the territory before queuing up a strike.
But, more broadly, it is a shot across the bow in a country currently debating escalating support to Ukraine. After supporting NATO-sponsored Ukrainian strikes into the Russian mainland, Belgium is building a precedent for what is looking like an explicit proxy war between Russia and Europe.
I think we’d be better off ignoring them
That’s why you’re a random rube on the internet and not a member of the Joint Chiefs.
I realise it’s a shot across the bow, but the intent seems to be to cause distress. Not to cause damage or steal secrets. Right now they seem to be achieving their goal.
That’s why you’re a random rube on the internet and not a member of the Joint Chiefs.
A fair point. They’ll be much better informed than me on what the real tangible threat is. All I’m saying is that it’s not clear to me what the threat is.
a member of the Joint Chiefs
Belgium has a single Chief Head of Defence. In Belgium, the Joint Chiefs are some guys who figured how to get supplies from Dutch coffee shops!
Belgium is building a precedent for what is looking like an explicit proxy war between Russia and Europe.
This seems to be mostly about Russian money that’s being held at Euroclear by or in Belgium. Europe wants to loan it to Ukraine, and Russia doesn’t want us to clear it.
Europe loaning Russian money to Ukraine so that Ukraine can buy weapons from Europe to use on Russia would seem like something the Russians wouldn’t like.
It’s pretty much impossible to tell if they’re armed until they blow up on you.
Correct. Does it have an extra large battery pack for endurance and loitering while it’s identifying a target, or is there a chunk of high explosive surrounded by shrapnel? There’s no way to tell which is which without taking it apart, and if it’s the latter and whatever is controlling it makes the choice that it wants you dead, it’s not going to wait around for you to inspect it, it’ll instantly zip towards you at 200 mph. Bang. The end.
I’ve watched enough Ukraine War footage to have a good idea how utterly surreal the future is going to be. Humanity has always been incredibly talented at finding new and more efficient ways to kill. It’s kind of our specialty. The wonderweapons we’ve gotten used to being developed by the military industrial complex tend to be expensive and impractical, because that provides a nice mix of profit and geopolitical control, but these small, cheap, efficient and incredibly versatile killing machines are going to reshape the world the same way the development of firearms did. I really have no idea what the future will look like anymore, I don’t think even any of the science fiction has really grasped all the consequences this will have.
Not armed, not small either. Minister of defense talks about (semi-)professionals. Not that he has any clue.
