Just to be even handed here, have we ever returned any stolen aircraft given to us by defectors? No.
That's not quite true.
In a 1976 incident, a Soviet defector flew an advanced MiG-25 fighter jet to Japan, which the United States thoroughly inspected for intelligence purposes, over Soviet protests. The jet was returned two months later -- in crates. ( from "Past Actions Undercut U.S. Case, Lawyers Say ",http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46936-2001Apr5.html , an interesting background article).
The ramming stories are pretty silly. A more conventional and believable analysis was in the WP yesterday:
Fighter Jet Flew Below U.S. Plane Before Impact washingtonpost.com
The midair collision that touched off a crisis between China and the United States occurred after a Chinese F-8 interceptor started to fly directly below a U.S. surveillance plane and the U.S. aircraft executed a banking maneuver to the left, Western sources said today.
The new details of Sunday's accident, provided by sources briefed by U.S. officials, did not make clear who was to blame. But they seemed to explain the rationale behind Chinese assertions that the U.S. plane moved "suddenly" and thereby triggered the accident, causing the Chinese fighter to crash with the apparent loss of its pilot.
On the subject of reciprocity, there was this rather bland statement in another article a couple days back:
This game was a familiar one to American and Soviet cold war intelligence planners. And the American military, which does not tolerate such close surveillance of United States territory, regards these operations as entirely routine. nytimes.com
I assume this will all be settled quietly after things calm down a little. W may or may not really want to pick a fight with China on this, but I'd expect the business interests that want to keep relations smooth will hold sway in the end. |
