On: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese survei...

[vkou]

Why would there need to be any plausible deniability for flying a spy aircraft over another country?

The U-2 spy plane did just that, as did Project Genetrix (Unmanned surveillance balloons), and then later, the SR-71 Blackbird, and as much as the Soviets complained, complaining and shooting at them was pretty much all they could do.

They shot down/recovered so many Project Genetrix balloons, in fact, that their left-over radiation-hardened film was re-used by the Soviet space program in their Luna 3 Moon probe.

All the sound and fury around this seems to be a serious case of 'the shoe is now on our foot'.

[bandyaboot → vkou]

> Why would there need to be any plausible deniability for flying a spy aircraft over another country?

Because they’re denying it. Presumably, they’d want their denial to be plausible.

[Fatnino → vkou]

Is the US supposed to not complain now just because the USSR got to complain first?

If something flies over your country, you get to loudly complain about it and shoot at it.

If you are able to hit it too, good for you.