Another Day, Another MIllion

The Air Force shot down another “object” over Lake Huron yesterday. Ka-ching! At the Associated Press Colleen Long, Lolita C. Baldor, and Zeke Miller report:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. fighter jet shot down an “unidentified object” over Lake Huron on Sunday on orders from President Joe Biden. It was the fourth such downing in eight days and the latest military strike in an extraordinary chain of events over U.S. airspace that Pentagon officials believe has no peacetime precedent.

Part of the reason for the repeated shootdowns is a “heightened alert” following a spy balloon from China that emerged over U.S. airspace in late January, Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, said in a briefing with reporters.

Since then, fighter jets last week also shot down objects over Canada and Alaska. Pentagon officials said they posed no security threats, but so little was known about them that Pentagon officials were ruling nothing out — not even UFOs.

“We have been more closely scrutinizing our airspace at these altitudes, including enhancing our radar, which may at least partly explain the increase,” said Melissa Dalton, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense.

Meanwhile, the Chinese have said that at least ten U. S. balloons have entered their airspace in the last year. From Lily Kuo at the Washington Post:

China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday said the United States has sent at least 10 unsanctioned balloons into Chinese airspace since last year, as the two countries feud over a Chinese airship discovered and shot down by the U.S. military earlier this month. The United States denied the allegation.

and the Taiwanese say that Chinese balloons enter their airspace all of the time. From Kathrin Hille at Financial Times:

Taiwan has observed dozens of Chinese military balloon flights in its airspace in recent years, far more than previously known, adding to concerns that Beijing could be preparing for an attack on the country.

“They come very frequently, the last one just a few weeks ago,” said a senior Taiwanese official. Another person briefed on the matter said such incursions were happening on average once a month.

Previously, Taiwan’s defence ministry had only confirmed one incident in February last year, in which multiple Chinese balloons in four batches loitered over the north of the country.

Other countries in the region, including Japan and the Philippines, have observed balloon incursions into their airspace, but their governments have given little detail.

I’m still trying to figure out what the model is. We need to spend $2 trillion a year on our military to be unprepared to deal with $1,000 lighter-than-air craft other than by shooting $400,000 missiles at them? And we only do it when a civilian points it out?

Update

The editors of the Wall Street Journal declaim:

The military operations in North America have Americans concerned, all the more so because the Administration has been both tight-lipped and dissembling. It didn’t disclose the presence of the first balloon until civilians spotted it over Montana. Then it claimed it posed no threat, only to shoot it down after political criticism. President Biden said it was “not a major breach” but still shot it down.

The Administration also whispered to its media mouthpieces that the Trump Administration had tolerated such balloon intrusions in U.S. airspace, only to correct that story after Trump officials denied any such knowledge. Turns out the Trump-era balloons were discovered only after the fact using intelligence methods.

which is not precisely reassuring. They conclude:

Are we seeing these objects now only because we are suddenly looking for them? Are they sent by foreign actors, or someone else? Do they pose a threat, and we don’t mean only to civilian air traffic? What the hell is going on up there, Mr. President?

I’m more concerned about what the heck is going on down here. Why hasn’t our military been concerned about this?