While I was tending to other obligations, the political world evidently went into a frenzy about a high-altitude Chinese surveillance balloon that was traversing the United States. The Pentagon eventually shot it down, albeit not until it was over the Atlantic Ocean and there was no concern about falling debris causing harm to unsuspecting American citizens.
It’s not clear why people went nuts about this balloon when at least three others violated our airspace during the Trump administration, and perhaps one other earlier in Biden’s administration. Yet, in general, I think it’s eminently reasonable to shoot foreign surveillance balloons down, and I’m not even sure how cautious I’d be about it.
To be clear, I accept the Pentagon’s explanation that the risk/reward ratio warranted patience, and they say they were able to jam its communications while monitoring its activities, so letting it fly might have been advantageous. What’s more, by giving it a water landing, they may recover more intact pieces that will help them reverse engineer the technology.
All in all, it shouldn’t be a particularly big deal, and I’m more concerned that it caused Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to call off his scheduled visit to China. Again, I don’t question the political and diplomatic call of cancelling, but I think the cancellation was unfortunate.
A lot of smart people are starting to predict a hot war with China in the near future, most likely related to the island of Taiwan, and I don’t think anyone should want to see that happen. So, I am very interested in seeing our two nations engage in conversations, and provocative actions are unhelpful at this time. In this case, we were provoked and responded appropriately, but I hope we can get the diplomacy back on track very soon.
