Allow me to share my point of view.

I was about 13 (that was 60 years ago) when I started listening to this mysterious shortwave radio. One of my early surprises was this German numbers station, where a lady was reading letters & numbers on about 3.8MHz on a nightly routine. I was told that this is how secret messages were passed.

I lived quite close to this secret INTERPOL shortwave station and went to scout & see. However, an abundance of trees and shrubs in all sizes blocked any view of antennas. Of course the tall fence surrounding it didn't help either. Shortwave was big in those days.
And my curiosity was roused when I first heard the US military phrase "do not answer - message follows".

Those were the days that shortwave was the ultimate solution for long distance communication, since computers, digital communication, the internet and satellites had not been invented yet.
How things have changed.

The following is my point of view. Granted, opinions are like butts, we all have one. No big deal, unless you're one of the Kardashians.

Many years ago, I started listening to the military on their VHF (250MHz) and L-Band (1.6GHz) satellites. Those were the days that the communication was analog, rather than digital. Even small planes now-a-days have two way L-Band satellite communication for GPS and squawker communication.

This (in my opinion) has made shortwave communication irrelevant. It is unreliable due to solar activity, even well known shortwave broadcasters like RNi have abandoned shortwave and switched to satellite.
And anyone with a $50 radio or internet access can overhear your shortwave conversation. You don't think the Chinese can hear this ?

So why is all this time, effort and money spend on maintaining the 8992KHz et al system when simple low cost satellite systems are so much faster and more reliable, allowing for the though-put of large chunks of information.?

If I were a betting person, my money would be on deception.
"All Warfare Is Based Upon Deception"
Sun Tzu

Are we being tricked ?

Is this all deceit ?

Until I know the answer, I'll keep listening and reading these posts......