Bolding emphasis mine.

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World Affairs Brief, February 10, 2023 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.

Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).

CHINA’S SPY BALLOON

On Feb. 1 a photojournalist wondering why aircraft were grounded at his Billings, MT airport noticed and captured images of a strange white orb in the sky. His friend at the Billings Gazette investigated and the next day our military publicly admitted it was a high altitude suspected spy balloon from China. The images quickly went viral. The Chinese were prepared with a statement passing it off as a “civilian” weather balloon gone off course, but the path of the balloon carried it near a string of sensitive military installations from Alaska to South Carolina where it was finally shot down in shallow waters off the SC coast. Until the US reveals what kind of equipment was in the wreckage, we won’t know for certain what the real purpose was of the overflight. I doubt very much it was weather research because no nation sends weather balloons aloft so far outside their own country, except, perhaps, for military planning purposes which is still in the spy category. A host of aircraft from AWACS to a high-altitude U2 surveillance aircraft were used to evaluate the balloon with its extensive solar array on a truss-like framework that also contained electric motors driving propellers. This indicates that the balloon was designed to maneuver as well as drift in the upper air currents, which weather balloons are not designed to do. Whether or not there were high definition cameras aboard and batteries to operate equipment at night will be the determining factor on what its purpose was. This week, I’ll discuss the various theories about other purposes the balloon might have.

The fact that the airport in Billings was closed to traffic indicates the US was already aware of the Chinese balloon. Pilots in the area also said refueling tankers were circling in the area, probably there to refuel the AWACS plane which was directed to record what transmissions the balloon was sending back to Chinese satellites above. The US government probably was not planning on alerting the public to all its efforts to track this balloon and its communications were it not for the efforts of a inconvenienced pilot and photo journalist at the Billings airport.

Unless the US decides to classify as secret or lie about what they find, it should be rather easy to recover every piece of equipment on the wreckage of the balloon since it was shot down into relatively shallow waters only about 50 feet deep.

The government held a Top Secret briefing for certain members of Congress yesterday, so I suspect they have already recovered the equipment on the balloon and are not intending to make it public. The government claims the secret clearance is necessary to protect methods of intelligence collection, but neither the use of the U2 spy plane or the navy salvage team are any secret to the world. Perhaps the government doesn’t want the public to know how early they were tracking this balloon.

As of Thursday, the US did admit to some of the equipment onboard, derived from the U2 flyby, according to DNYUZ:

The Chinese spy balloon shot down by the U.S. military over the Atlantic Ocean was capable of collecting communications signals and was part of a fleet of surveillance balloons directed by the Chinese military that had flown over more than 40 countries across five continents, the State Department said Thursday.

The United States used high resolution imagery from U-2 flybys to determine the balloon’s capabilities, the department said in a written announcement, adding that the balloon’s equipment “was clearly for intelligence surveillance and inconsistent with the equipment onboard weather balloons.”

The agency said the balloon had multiple antennas in an array that was “likely capable of collecting and geo-locating communications.” Solar panels on the machine were large enough to produce power to operate “multiple active intelligence collection sensors,” the department said.

The department said the [Chinese] company [it identified] advertises balloon products on its website and has posted videos from past flights that apparently flew over U.S. airspace and the airspace of other nations. The videos show balloons that have similar flight patterns as the surveillance balloons that the United States has been discussing this week, the agency said.

According to government sources, this isn’t the first time China has floated balloons over the US. While the previous overflights, they claim, were not detected in the past, the government did say they reviewed NORAD radar tapes from past years and found other balloon incursions, although not as deep into US territory. The balloon itself is not highly visible on radar unless the balloon fabric has an aluminized Mylar coating, which this balloon did not. However, the large steel or aluminum truss supporting the solar arrays and equipment is visible on radar.

The US has also admitted that it did detect this balloon before in entered US airspace but chose not to intercept it, claiming concern for people or property where the balloon wreckage might impact. This is a pretty flimsy excuse given the miles of rural, lightly inhabited farm and desert land it crossed over. I think they chose to down it over water within the 12 mile US territorial limit so they could recover the equipment in our own waters and without much damage. The following video report was filed by my favorite military Youtube channel by Ward Carroll. Here is my summary of his review:

1. According to the government, the balloon took off from China and traveled the high altitude jet streams to reach the US. It overflew Alaska, Western Canada and entered US airspace in northern Idaho

2. Over the next 4 days it went over Billings, MT Rapid City, SD, Omaha Nebraska, St. Louis MO, and NC.

Omaha has a major military base, but all its sensitive facilities are underground. -Nothing compromising to see above ground, although electronic surveillance of communications might have picked up something.

3. It passed over a number of sensitive US military facilities like Mountain Home AFB and Whiteman AFB, home of the B-2 Bomber.

Comment: This is not true. The flight path didn’t come close to either Mountain Home or Whiteman. Mountain Home is a fighter base with no secret aircraft, and though Whiteman is a B- 2 bomber base, no sensitive aircraft were left outside of hangars as the US had alerted all military facilities to go into “deep cover” mode. It did overfly several military facilities, but I doubt any visual intelligence was gained beyond what a satellite could pick out.

4. The DOD said the balloon over the US and the one over Latin America had surveillance equipment atypical of weather research and it had motors and propellers to aid propulsion and to allow it to maneuver. Thus, their flight paths were deliberate and pre-planned.

Comment. The flight path of a balloon this size can only be pre-planned to a very limited extent because of the high drag of a huge balloon in the airstream. It might be able to deviate course 10-20 miles in an hour if it’s lucky, but it is racing along at over 100 miles per hour in the jet stream. So being able to pick a target and hit it in a balloon, thousands of miles from launch is nigh unto impossible. Targets of opportunity along the way, perhaps, are possible.

5. Similar balloons flew over the US at least 3 times during the Trump administration and at least once previously during the Biden administration, but this latest incursion was over the US a lot longer than the previous flights.

And, one Chinese balloon aimed at the US went so far off course when the jet stream dipped south that it ended up over Central and South America. That shows how unpredictable balloon paths can be, thwarting any ability for precision targeting.

6. On Saturday, Feb 4th, the government decided to shoot it down over water to avoid civilian casualties on the ground, and then capture the equipment from the water below, within the US 12 mile territorial limit. [I’ll discuss other possible reasons for that below.]

7. [The following was the most important piece of information, to explain how the shoot down with a normal heat seeking missile was possible using its other alternative tracking system.] The F-22 from Andrews AFB used an AIM 9 Sidewinder missile without a warhead activated to shoot down the balloon without damaging the equipment. The Aim 9 sensors can use difference in IR light, and not heat to seek out and lock on to a target, via the helmet mounted sensors of the F22 pilot. [The FAA closed airspace and three airports nearby, which was not at all necessary.]

8. Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled his scheduled trip to China to meet with Xi Jinping.

PJ media wrote a scathing attack on the Biden administration claiming that the US had knowledge of these incursions before. This is meant to imply that Biden is always downplaying Chinese danger or influence.

This is an example of how conservative critics continue to complain about Biden’s compromised position with the Chinese after taking millions of dollars from the Chinese in bogus business ventures directly operated by son Hunter and Biden’s brother James, with secret payoffs to “the big guy” Joe Biden.

But as I’ve said so many times before, Biden is a pure puppet of the US Deep State globalists, who don’t care how much money they take from China or Ukraine, or even if it lets China think they have something over on Biden. They don’t. He’s just a corrupt fool who isn’t running the country.

The Daily Mail quoted China’s angry response at the shootdown:

China is threatening to respond with ‘resolute action’ which American defense experts say could result in ‘further provocations’ after the U.S. finally shot down their spy balloon. Beijing’s Foreign Ministry last night slammed the move as a ‘clear overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.’

The US often tries not to openly embarrass China so as to not give China an excuse to retaliate against US surveillance aircraft which have been forced down before even when not overflying China’s borders. This link as a brief overview of other international balloon sightings by the Chinese in Japan, India, and the Philippines

Here’s why a country might use a balloon for surveillance instead of or in conjunction with satellites, according to the Washington Post: I’ll use this commentary to correct some claims.

What to know about the suspected Chinese spy balloon?

Clarke points out that balloons can soar above the range of most planes, and their slow speed also means they aren’t always picked up by radar, while additional technology or paint can help to further conceal them.

That’s mostly hype. They can get higher than most planes, but their slow speed doesn’t have anything to do with radar’s ability to see their metal equipment. The delicate fabric doesn’t reflect many radar waves; only the metal equipment dangling beneath, which can be a substantial target that is impossible to conceal.

Equally importantly, balloons can stay over one area for longer periods than satellites, if the weather permits. Satellites can provide high-resolution imagery, Clarke said in an interview, “but the ability to monitor, to pick up wireless or computer traffic is an advantage if you can stay in one place. … The satellite can only pick that up as it travels over for a relatively short period.”

-Only if the jet stream is relatively slow. Yes, the balloon, being lower in altitude, can get higher resolution photos for a country that may not have the technology for high resolution satellite cameras.

There’s also the cost benefit: a satellite may cost up to $300 million over its lifetime, according to one estimate from 2020; even the most high-tech balloon would be cheaper. [True.]

Malcolm Macdonald, a professor and space technology engineer from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, agreed that “a balloon is very difficult to see on radar, although the sensor bay underneath will be more visible.” [Finally the Post gets something right.]

Balloons also have an advantage over satellites because they are more maneuverable, according to Macdonald. “The motion of a satellite is very predictable, a balloon (or other aircraft) offers the chance for an unexpected overflight, to catch those you are observing by surprise,” he said in emailed comments. “You might hope to get something you might not see, or hear, from space.”

Also not really true. The US spy satellites can be maneuvered over a target, but it does use up limited amounts of onboard fuel. As I said previously, balloons are maneuverable to a very limited extent.

Back in 2022 Biden shut down a Trump administration initiative to stop Chinese spying, according to Newswars:

The China Initiative was established in 2018 under then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to help thwart China’s aggressive efforts to steal American intellectual property and to spy on American industry and research. But in 2022, the Biden administration had claimed it shuttered the anti-CCP espionage program because it was racist.

I’m not sure what is worse: giving more leeway to Chinese espionage or excusing it with this woke ideology. Now let’s look at some of the other possible motives for the incursion:

The EMP Threat

Much has been made of the potential to drift an EMP weapon over the states. Yes, a very large balloon can lift a small nuclear weapon into the high atmosphere, and this was tested in a small scale, by the US in Operation Yucca in 1956.

But this would NOT be a useful EMP strategy because of two reasons: 1) it would take 8-10 small nuclear weapons strategically placed over the entire US continent to take down the grid, and 2) it would be impossible for 8-10 balloons to be launched from China at different times to guarantee proper placement over the US, given the changes in wind patterns from day to day. In addition, balloons don’t have the ability to maneuver very far from their wind carried flight path. So discount that balloon threat as an EMP delivery method.

The Bioweapon Threat

Biological weapons released by balloon is a very real threat, however, since the release of a bio weapon by a balloon doesn’t have to be precise. A release over the West coast in almost any location would guarantee an eastward flow of the particles in line with the general direction of west-to-east wind patterns at these latitudes.

This may offer yet another reason why the US decided to shoot it down once past the US mainland. When the unarmed missile pierced the Chinese balloon it showed a massive dispersion of a white powder, which drifted out to sea. We probably won’t know what the white powder was composed of, but if it were anthrax, it would have done a lot of damage had the balloon been brought down inside the States. If the US military anticipated that possibility, we are grateful.

The balloon may well have had multiple purposes, but hopefully the US military will now be scanning the skies in the future to make sure more balloons don’t drift over this country.