Because wild accusations make you look like a geopolitical amateur We know whose they are. They know whose they are. Firing on known-Chinese UAVs over the US is always going to have a diplomatic angle while firing on "unidentified" UAVs over the US just makes the Chinese look shady. From a game theory standpoint, painting "CHINA" on the side (like the first one) says "yeah, that's us, we overflew your country, what are you gonna do about it." Shooting it down says "you are not the boss of me." If you then say "we shot down a bunch of CHINESE UAVs" you're saying "CHINA REALLY MAKES ME MAAAADDDDD!!!!!" whereas saying "yeah we shot some stuff down, w/e I do what I want" basically dares China to throw a chair at you from across the stage of the Jerry Springer Show. Like I said - the whole ridiculous dust-up over the "he threw a missiwatim!!!" one gave the government cover to pick those things off whenever they want. The end-game is they stop telling us about it and just get zappy-zappy.