So, we shot down the Chinese balloon drifting over the United States. At the Wall Street Journal Michael R. Gordon, Nancy A. Youssef, and Doug Cameron report:
WASHINGTON—The U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon over the Atlantic Ocean, days after it was spotted crossing the U.S. and adding to already high tensions between Washington and Beijing.
An Air Force F-22 Raptor jet fighter on Saturday downed the balloon with a single AIM-9X Sidewinder missile off the coast of South Carolina at 2:39 p.m. ET within U.S. territorial waters, officials said. The jet fighter was flying at 58,000 feet, below the balloon, which had been flying as high as 65,000 feet.
U.S. Navy ships, as well as Coast Guard vessels, have begun the effort to recover the surveillance equipment the balloon was carrying, the Pentagon said.
Defense officials said they didn’t know how long the recovery would take and what could be gleaned from the recovered equipment. The debris fell in relatively shallow water about 47 feet deep and was spread out over at least 7 miles, a senior military official said.
President Biden had signaled earlier Saturday that the U.S. would “take care of†the balloon. After the downing, Mr. Biden said he had ordered the Pentagon on Wednesday to shoot down the balloon “as soon as possible.â€
“They decided that the best time to do that was when it got over water,†said Mr. Biden. “They successfully took it down.â€
Mr. Biden didn’t respond to a question about how the shootdown might affect U.S.-China relations.
China protested the military action in a statement early Sunday in Beijing by expressing its “strong dissatisfaction,†saying in a statement from the Foreign Ministry that the U.S. overreacted and violated international norms.
The presence of the balloon prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday to postpone a visit to Beijing aimed at steadying the two powers’ tense relations, delaying a diplomatic effort both governments agree is needed to manage their geopolitical rivalry. It also touched off a debate within the administration and in Congress over how to handle a surveillance craft flying over much of the continental U.S., officials said.
I’m stuck trying to deduce what U. S. policy actually is. Some possibilities:
- The Chinese float spy balloons over the U. S.; we float spy balloons over China. Wink wink nudge nudge bob’s your uncle. Unless civilians notice and the president is embarrassed. Then it’s a dire violation.
- We think it’s wrong for other countries to violate U. S. sovereignty but just fine for us to violate the sovereignty of other countries (up to and including invasion if it strikes our fancy).
- We think that violation of another country’s sovereignty by us or anyone else is a serious violation unless the motives are benign and you can always infer the benignity of the motives.
- We think that violation of another country’s sovereignty by us or anyone else is no big deal as long as no one is injured or property damaged and you can always tell if that’s going to happen.
I’d welcome the suggestion of other possibilities. I tend to lean to one of the above at this point.
My own very Jeffersonian preference would be for our actions to be just, our intentions clear, and our actions predictable. In this particular case I think that as soon as the balloon was detected over U. S. territory it should have been intercepted and stopped, whether by shooting it down or otherwise. I also do not think we should fly intelligence-gathering balloons over other countries without those countries’ permission.
Here’s my theory:
First, assuming the balloon was for intelligence-gathering, what was its purpose?
To a lot of laypeople, it doesn’t make sense because of satellites. But satellites aren’t the end-all, be-all of intel collection.
My guess is that imagery very likely isn’t the primary purpose. A high-altitude balloon with limited steering ability would be much more ideal for SIGINT collection since signals can be collected over a wide area and thus precise navigation isn’t necessary. And while it’s possible to collect SIGINT from space, the physics of the electromagnetic spectrum makes lower-altitude collection essential, which is why the US maintains and frequently flies a large number of different SIGINT collection aircraft.
Secondly, a balloon provides plausible deniability that you can’t get with other types of aircraft. The argument that the balloon is a weather balloon that got blown off course is a logical one that provides an easy cover story that many will accept and is difficult to disprove unlike, for instance, a long-range unmanned aircraft.
Getting back to US SIGINT aircraft – we have a number of them with different capabilities. And we frequently fly them all over the world including regular flights off the coast of China to collect intelligence on China. This really, really pisses China off even though we stay well within international airspace.
China doesn’t have the forward basing to support SIGINT aircraft collection of the US, so my guess is that the balloons are most likely filling that role. The design of the balloons supports this theory – a long boom with propellers underneath and a lot of solar power not only allows limited navigation capabilities, but they can probably rotate the boom to allow the aiming of antennas in particular directions. Information is then likely transmitted via satellite back to China.
As noted in another comment, we actually had one of our Cobra Ball aircraft up and collecting on the balloon for a couple of days…The choice of Cobra Ball is an interesting one that also points in certain directions.
The balloon may have had cameras, but I think they were probably a secondary capability. As far as imagery goes, aircraft (and balloons) do have several advantages over satellites – one of those is taking low-angle, off-nadir pictures. Looking at something from a steep look angle vs looking at it from overhead can be quite valuable. Such angles are more difficult with satellites since are much higher up which inherently limits look-angles, and looking through much more atmosphere reduces resolution.
This is another reason the US has aircraft with advance imaging suites – satellites can’t do everything.
Finally, it’s possible that this really is just a weather balloon. Possible, but very unlikely in my view given what we know and how the US government is acting.
What really new info would they add? I suspect they already know where all of the silos are and they know where we have our airfields. What SIGINT are we putting out over airwaves that would help that into going over the internet or phone lines? They can just read our social media.
Steve
Another possibility is that it was a probing “attack” (non-attack attack), intended to determine the extent of our defenses and what we would do.
“What really new info would they add?”
You could ask the same thing about all the flights the US does.
Clearly, there is a benefit. SIGINT is a very diverse category – it doesn’t just cover communications, but also technical analysis of the signals themselves, radars, and other things. It’s not wholly or even primarily about intercepting communications.
“Another possibility is that it was a probing “attack†(non-attack attack), intended to determine the extent of our defenses and what we would do.”
It’s likely there are multiple purposes. Collecting real-time information from US military sites that are responding to an unusual event would be logical.
Your point in comments, Dave, is what I have heard most frequently voiced.