China’s spy balloon: What really happened?

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct Francis Gary Powers’s name and the nature of the 1960 U-2 spy plane incident. We regret the errors.

China’s spy balloon was not a Pearl Harbor-type crisis. But on the political Richter scale, it was a 10 out of a possible 10. Most Americans could not understand how an enormous balloon, supposedly the equivalent of three school buses in size, could be allowed free passage over America for a week before a Sidewinder missile ended its journey.

Since the shoot-down of that balloon by an F-22 a week ago Saturday, the Pentagon has reported downing a “car-sized object” flying at 40,000 feet in proximity to Alaska. No other information about this object has been released. Then a third “object” was downed over Canada on Saturday, and a fourth later that day.

In determining what is happening and why, let’s start with the first balloon. What was in the three bus loads it was carrying? Did China launch this to affect the State of the Union address and Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s pending visit? Or was this coincidence?

Further, did Chinese President Xi Jinping know of or authorize this operation in advance? Or is this similar to what happened in 1960 when President Eisenhower initially denied that Francis Gary Powers’s U-2 spy plane had been shot down by the Soviet air force while conducting photographic reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory? The incident forced a cancellation of a summit with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

From photographs, the largest non-balloon material seems to be the giant solar panels that constituted the bulk of the external package. Further, the “package” of intel appeared to amount to about 350 pounds, with the bulk of the weight helium needed to change altitude. 

Now suppose this was a weather balloon, as China claimed. Will we know?

What were the contingency plans? For penetration of the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), specific rules of engagement apply. If the penetrator had hostile intent, deadly force could have been used.  

That did not occur for the balloon, but what about for the “object” flying at 40,000 feet, which could have been a danger to commercial aviation?

How would the U.S. have reacted if the balloon had been a Chinese jet? The main difference between a balloon and a jet is speed. Not shooting the balloon down over Alaskan waters or Canada was understandable until the “object” was brought down. That leads to profound questions about decisionmaking and who was consulted.  

Were NASA, NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency) or other technical organizations engaged in decisionmaking?  

Who provided the decision package? How was this coordinated across government? And who made the recommendation to bring the balloon down over the Atlantic?

Technically, while F-16s, F-15s and F-22s can fly well above 50,000 feet, that requires certain cockpit changes to protect pilots that are not simple to install. Was that one reason for allowing the balloon’s passage? If so, is the U.S. prepared for higher altitude interceptions?  

U-2s that reportedly trailed the balloons have no weapons stations. That China relies on balloons for intelligence gathering missions is interesting. Is that because balloons are far less expensive than rocket-launched satellites? Or is China’s satellite technology dated and thus relatively ineffective?

Other political questions, such as why Blinken postponed his trip, need answers. It would have been appropriate for Biden or Blinken to confront Xi over whether he was aware of these flights and authorized them. 

All the circumstances surrounding the four events may never be fully known or disclosed. But for each, a comprehensive investigation is essential. And that investigation should begin immediately and be completed as soon as possible, meaning weeks not months or years.

The reasons are clear although potentially volatile. From all appearances, the White House and other government agencies seemed unprepared for this first event, though better for the other three. Questions about the administration’s competence were raised by both parties. And history looms.

The U.S. went to war in Vietnam on the pretext of North Vietnamese PT boat attacks that never happened in August 1964 in the Tonkin Gulf. Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction 20 years ago. So, before the president, Congress and the public draw any conclusions, all the facts surrounding these four events must be established.

Otherwise, the result risks becoming another case of America’s “ready, fire, aim” approach to national security.

Harlan Ullman is senior adviser at the Atlantic Council and the prime author of “shock and awe.” His latest  book is “The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large.” Follow him on Twitter @harlankullman.