From "What a Cold War spy-plane crisis teaches us about China’s balloon antics" by Richard Aldous, "Macmillan, Eisenhower and the Cold War."
In a carbon copy of NASA’s statement during the U-2 crisis, Beijing has said the balloon flying over Montana was used for weather research and had strayed off course. C. Douglas Dillon, No. 2 at the State Department in 1960, is said to have audibly gasped when he was told about the NASA statement hitting the news wires. He knew it was a lie and that “the Russians would jump us on it.”
There will be a Chinese version of Dillon gasping somewhere in Beijing right now, because the calculation for the Chinese government after its own statement today is the same as in 1960. If this object now turns out to be a spy balloon, then the Chinese government will have been caught out in an obvious lie. President Xi Jinping faces the same unpalatable choice Eisenhower did. Blame someone lower down the chain of command and admit that you don’t know what’s going on in your own government. Otherwise, take the blame and accept the international consequences.
Eisenhower believed owning up was the only viable option. The alternative, Vice President Richard M. Nixon agreed, “would be to imply that war could start without the president’s knowledge.”...
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The notion that there will be "consequences" for the Chinese government's leader in being caught out in a lie, just like there would be for a US president, seems rather naive.
"would be to imply that war could start without the president’s knowledge.”
You mean...like Ukraine? Victoria Nuland could not be reached for comment.
this is TOTALLY irrelevant!
Just because, the United States does something, Does NOT Mean others can do it!!
it's a known corollary of the law: Just because, the dem's do something, Does NOT Mean others can do it!
The ChiComs are spying on us. And they are doing it in our faces. Biden did nothing. Impeach!
"By 1960, the United States had been flying U-2 spy planes into Soviet airspace since the mid-1950s."
This makes zero sense.
The real story comes afterward. From that incident, which I remember well, my father being a Navy officer, it was just 4 years, beginning from *nothing*, that we had an operational SR-71 "Blackbird" in the air. Totally new concept. Everything designed from scratch. Sufficient titanium -- which was a LOT -- sneaked out of Russia, the main source, in small batches so as not to attract attention, using numerous ruses and false pretenses, developping a brand new fuel, figuring how to refuel that jelly in flight, figuring out how to fly the thing at some 2400+ mph, and training pilots.
All in total secrecy. All in four years. For a plane which once cross the US in 49 minutes.
"If this object now turns out to be a spy balloon, then the Chinese government will have been caught out in an obvious lie."
Ho Hum. It's a mystery why the Chi-Coms are using s device flying at 60,000 feet to spy on us when they have loaded up our universities with spies on the ground. That's in addition to the spies embedded in the current administration (read: Hunter). And let's not forget our tech brethren kowtowing to the Chi-Coms.
For historical purposes, review Bill Clinton, Bernard L. Schwartz, Loral Corporation, W-88 warhead technology for sale.
What would the Chinese possibly gain from a spy ballon when Chinese spies are literally and figuratively in bed with our highest ranking government officials and their son? A TikTok video with tons of views?
I don't see what they're spying on that they can't get with a satellite.
It is perfectly reasonable to expect our government to conduct spy missions over Chinese airspace and at the same time to shoot down any attempts made by them doing the same. That's called logic.
Any SANE military would have shot this thing down over Alaska the second it entered our airspace.
We need new guards for the defense of our liberties.
Here's a simple question: Is it the official US government policy that foreign countries may fly spy devices over our airspace to spy on American citizens?
The answer to that question is: Yes, that appears to be the Democrat-run government policy, since they deliberately allow this device to continue its spying mission.
"By 1960, the United States had been flying U-2 spy planes into Soviet airspace since the mid-1950s."
That sentence makes me dizzy. It reads like a sentence from a time travel sci-fi story. The clock starts on "since" pretty much after the first occurrence. The flight in 1960 had no bearing on when the flights started.
By noon, Ann had been awake since 4AM.
Kruschev had not authorized fatal downing of U2 over Cuba, October 1962. Shock for both sides prompted talks to end the missile crisis.
"I don't see what they're spying on that they can't get with a satellite"
Audio. Some types of SIGINT. Hyper-accurate millimetric-wave radar profiles. Lots of stuff.
That said, a balloon is a super cludgy way to go about it. Just buy a fucking van or rent a Cessna 172 for Christ sakes. Lord knows there are already probably millions of CCP agents already in the country that could manage it, and in high places too.
"Antics"? Is that the word the editor really wants here?
Maybe they just wanted to see how their crops were doing on all that farm land they own.
Some years ago I read a serious article that argued it was a decision by the Eisenhower administration to allow the Soviets to launch Sputnik into orbit first. The reasoning was that letting them succeed and have Sputnik orbit over the US would establish our right to orbit satellites over Russia without triggering claims that their air space had been violated (as U2 flights did). Spy satellites would soon be ready...
Here's a simple question: Is it the official US government policy that foreign countries may fly spy devices over our airspace to spy on American citizens?
What is your definition of airspace? Foreign satellites fly over the United States every day. Many of them spy on us. We have technology to shoot them down that's been available for a decade. It is official government policy not to shoot them down.
A spy balloon does yield intel that can't be gained from a satellite or the countless CCP agents embedded in America. The spy balloon tells China how committed the US is to territorial integrity.
Are the American people concerned about the spy balloon? The Washington Post calls it "balloon antics". How whimsical! NORAD is tracking it.
A serious country would investigate, then eliminate the incursion. It's not a spy balloon, it's a trial balloon.
What William50 said @ 8:23am
The CIA U-2s, known as Angels, began flying operational spy missions over the Soviet Union in 1956. The Soviets tracked it but didn't say anything publicly because they didn't want to admit they couldn't stop the overflights. Each flight was personally authorized by President Eisenhower. Everyone in the know knew that those flights were becoming vulnerable. Eisenhower was convinced to allow one more flight on May 1, 1960, and Francis Gary Powers was shot down. He and all of the other U-2 pilots had been "sheep dipped". They officially resigned from the Air Force and flew for the CIA. Powers carried a suicide pin hidden inside a coin. He was captured alive. The US released a story about how a high-altitude weather pilot had been incapacitated and the plane had flown into Soviet airspace. The Soviets exposed the lie and withdrew from a planned summit meeting. Part of the aftermath is that the US formally agreed not to overfly Soviet airspace anymore and stuck to the agreement. We were already working on CORONA KH-1 spy satellites, so the need wasn't pressing. Meanwhile, the CIA was paying Lockheed to develop the Mach 3.3 successor to the U-2, the A-12 Archangel. That was the predecessor to the fabulous SR-71.
A weather... climate balloon, perhaps with a payload of unknown origin, drifts comfortably over enemy space, perchance to garner and assess a response. A virus that came from Wuhan... planned parent/hood, excess deaths, too.
The question isn't, "Doesn't everyone spy on everyone?". Sure.
But, please note, when the Soviets could shoot down a u-2, they SHOT DOWN a U-2.
The DOD says we can easily shoot it down - I'd hope so, it's a freakin' balloon. So, obviously we shot it down.
Nope. The dithering dullards of the Biden Administration down play the act of spying and tell us it will wander around a few more days. No harm, no foul.
Did we not detect the thing as it approached our airspace? If not we got some 'splaining to do. If so, why we F-35's not waiting with their Gatling guns for the incursion?
Where's Mary Poppins when you need her?
"It is perfectly reasonable to expect our government to conduct spy missions over Chinese airspace and at the same time to shoot down any attempts made by them doing the same. That's called logic."
It is equally reasonable for the Chinese to do the same. However, "reasonable" does not necessarily mean acceptable...by either party. Actions that we consider unacceptable by other nations are no less unacceptable when we engage in the same activities.
The Chinese are only surveying their future domain...
A balloon seems to make sense of the goal is to to be shot down, and getting data from the way it is shot down, thus probing and analyzing systems, radar, homeland defense tech.
"Actions that we consider unacceptable by other nations are no less unacceptable when we engage in the same activities."
True, but also ignored by politicians and political parties and most interpersonal relationships.
rehajm said...
"What would the Chinese possibly gain from a spy balloon when Chinese spies are literally and figuratively in bed with our highest ranking government officials and their son?"
To see what they can get away with. I think in military terms it's called ,"testing the enemy's perimeter." It is an act of war.
There are two balloons, one North, one South ("over Latin America"). Or as the Chinese call them "Tick" and Tock". Given the Biden Administration response, expect more. Republican politicians who voice concern will be dismissed as xenophobic warmongers.
This story is really a retelling of "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator"," complete with Charlie Bucket and Willie Wonka, whose Great Glass Elevator caused a Vermicious Knid to bruise his tale while attacking the Elevator.
Screw it, let's just hire that guy from California that went up with a bunch of balloons tied to his lawnchair. He's a 'get'er done' kind of guy, and I'll provide the beer and the pellet gun if someone else will front the helium.
This Red Zeppelin is listening, photographing and testing our air defense capabilities (radar) much more acurately than a Sat could. It's what adversary flyovers of USN ships are doing.
It's the same cat and mouse the Russians and USA played in occupation Japan post WWII. Russians send the Migas toward Japan to find out when USA radar picks them up and how long it takes for USA F-86 figthers to intercep them. Later the USA does the same to Russia. Same game played with Cuba in the 1960s. My father was envolved in both senarios as well as being shot down over Manila Bay while on a P-38 photo mission during WWII.
Biden's clown World admin doesn't believe in borders.
Aggie said...
"Screw it, let's just hire that guy from California that went up with a bunch of balloons tied to his lawnchair. He's a 'get'er done' kind of guy, and I'll provide the beer and the pellet gun if someone else will front the helium."
Except that the balloon is at 50 to 60 thousand feet. He'll run out of oxygen way before he gets that high.
Blogger gadfly said...
"This story is really a retelling of "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator"," complete with Charlie Bucket and Willie Wonka, whose Great Glass Elevator caused a Vermicious Knid to bruise his tale while attacking the Elevator."
What an amazing little world you live in.
Very odd that CNN, New York Times, National Public Radio are all using the term "spy balloon" in headlines.
I read the first edition of Powers’s book a long time ago.
As I recall, he blamed Oswald for giving the Ruskies accurate info on the U-2’s altitude capabilities that he’d picked up as a radar operator in Japan.
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