RE: The Balloon
February 3, 2023 at 4:17 pm
(This post was last modified: February 3, 2023 at 5:10 pm by Anomalocaris.)
It’s not necessarily a wayward weather balloon. Pentagon’s claim that the balloon provides China with no additional reconnaissance capability over satellites is incorrect. Balloons can sample air and detect isotope traces of buffered nuclear tests, leakages from chemical weapon tests, etc in a way no satellite can. And it is easy to release the balloon into the right jet stream and predict reasonable well where it would go. A more sophisticated balloon with satellite link can maneuver by changing altitude to take advantage of different wind direction.
The reason not to shoot it down, and down play its potential reconnaissance value is probably political. There is not reason to escalate this into a situation analogous to 1960 U-2 shoot down until China’s exact intention is clear. Shooting it down as a threat would unavoidably create a crisis that causes any negotiation or diplomatic interplay between China and the U.S. to seize up, In exactly the same way as the Soviet shoot down of U-2 in 1960s scuttled the Paris disarmament summit talk scheduled for that year.
If the balloon is a surveillance air sniffer, there maybe reason to let it keep sniffing because sometimes you do want to let your adversary know that you are not cheating or doing nefarious things under the table because if they think you are, they might respond by taking steps that you would not like.
The reason not to shoot it down, and down play its potential reconnaissance value is probably political. There is not reason to escalate this into a situation analogous to 1960 U-2 shoot down until China’s exact intention is clear. Shooting it down as a threat would unavoidably create a crisis that causes any negotiation or diplomatic interplay between China and the U.S. to seize up, In exactly the same way as the Soviet shoot down of U-2 in 1960s scuttled the Paris disarmament summit talk scheduled for that year.
If the balloon is a surveillance air sniffer, there maybe reason to let it keep sniffing because sometimes you do want to let your adversary know that you are not cheating or doing nefarious things under the table because if they think you are, they might respond by taking steps that you would not like.
