It's bad enough when armed coast guard-type vessels from both sides are jockeying for position at close quarters. Now the time to react with the right decision at perceived threats has dropped to seconds:
At a press conference, an official with the ministry confirmed that China sent two J-10 fighters to the East China Sea after a Y-8 aircraft was closely followed by two Japanese F-15 fighters as it patrolled the southwest airspace of the East China Sea oil platform on Thursday.
In aerial games of chicken, firing first becomes much more important. Pilots will be in tense potential life-or-death confrontations every time they let a plane from the other side get in firing position. If a pilot turns on their equipment to lock on to the opposing plane to rattle the other pilot, even if the initiating pilot has no intentions of firing, how will the targeted pilot know this is all fun and games?
Japan should send in the robots to defend their claims.
