I don't know about US "audacity" though - the US have been caught red-handed spying on the Iranians, and that's embarrassing, but it will come as no surprise to the Iranians. Many nations seem to be quietly spying on each other.
Is it a belligerent act, though - a punch in the face? Spying seems to be a kind of a military passive-strategic act - but not bellicose or an act of war in itself. It's not a Pearl Harbour type of event anyway.
-IainB
There are international conventions (actually its "more guidelines than rules" as Capt. Barbarossa would say) which cover what are considered acceptable levels of spying. Necessary because every country does some spying on its enemies
and allies alike. It's unofficial and policed by a fairly strict
tit for tat response structure. But it's very real nevertheless. Satellites are generally considered ok. Ditto high altitude spy planes - with the understanding they may be shot at with the intent of destroying or bringing them down. (An unavoidable accommodation since the country making the spy flights usually denies their existence - which therefor makes spy planes "unidentified aerial objects." Zapping a UFO is not considered an act of war. Which is also why
detected unidentified objects are always ordered to identify themselves prior to hostile actions being taken against them. Don't respond? You're now fair game.)
Low level flights, which are in the operational range of tactical military aircraft, get a little more tricky. If the flight has no
direct weaponry onboard (missles, etc.) it usually gets treated much as any other spy flight does. It only becomes an act of war if the country pushing it has the necessary means to commit a return belligerent action. If they don't (and it's seldom wise even when they do) it just does the usual playout in the world press and diplomatic arenas.
It was evidence of carelessness for the US to have a U-2 spyplane downed in 1960 - a risk that could have been predicted and mitigated -
If the published information is true (always up for question with this sort of thing) the U2 got shot down because the Soviets had made breakthrough improvements in the capabilities of their SAMs which allowed them to strike targets at altitudes much higher then US military planners thought would be possible for at least another year. Please note that being "out of range" was the U2's sole defense. It had no intrinsic stealth capabilities and carried no defensive weapon system. It was considered generally safe to use because all it really could do was fly very high, very far, and very fast. Oh yeah...and take a lot of very sharp pictures! (And the Soviets knew that. They might not have liked it. But it would have been a stretch to go to war over it.)
So I don't think that's so much being careless as it is the Soviets being very careful. Obviously they were better at keeping their secrets than the US was at ferreting them out when it came to missile technology.
Also, because some of the boats hit were made of magnesium alloy, they burned up when they got hit. A magnesium fire can't be put out very easily, so the boats were a complete loss.
I don't know how warship designers could have overlooked such an elementary fact about magnesium alloys, but there you are.
Magnesium looks pretty in those bright flashes that you see in fireworks.
If the ships were built in the mid to late Cold War era, it would have made perfect sense. Those ships would have been designed to fight the Soviet Union. Because the Soviet navy and submarine fleet carried tactical nuclear torpedos there is no armor or substance that could protect against a hit from that type of weapon. The strategy then switched to improving survivability through increased cruising speeds and maneuverability made possible by decreasing the overall weight of the vessel. The USA switched to using aluminum for much of its ship construction since magnesium would have been cost prohibitive for the number of ships the US was planning to deploy. GB either decided to spend the money on the lighter magnesium, or could better afford it since it would be fielding fewer ships.
Either way, for when those ships were built, it probably was the best compromise based on the deployment scenarios they were designed for. Why there was no Exocet defense installed is another matter. But if I recall, nobody knew Argentina had those at the start of the Falklands crisis. France had sold them but never informed its allies that it had.
Now that speed and maneuverability is no longer an optimal defense thanks to space-based tracking and targeting systems, the newest naval designs call for stealthier vessels. Taking a cue from multipurpose/multimission bomber designs, all the newest warships being built are designed to be multipurpose stealth weapon platforms.
The days of the heavily armored dreadnought battleships are over. The new navies of major world powers will likely consist of two types of submarine, aircraft carriers, missile frigates, and small fast multipurpose attack ships. All will be lightly armored and as cloaked as the state of stealth technology will allow.
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