By Andrew Thornebrooke
February 6, 2023 Updated: February 6, 2023
The suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts to the ocean after being shot down off the coast in Surfside Beach, S.C., on Feb. 4, 2023. (Reuters/Randall Hill)
News Analysis
The Chinese spy balloon that navigated through U.S. and
Canadian airspace for a week before being shot down may have been conducting
reconnaissance for a potential conflict with the United States, though experts
believe its mission is only just beginning to be understood.
When the spy balloon
first entered U.S. airspace over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28, American
officials believed it would keep traveling on a northern trajectory over
sparsely populated areas.
Two days later, however,
the balloon slowed down over Canada and abruptly changed course, and headed
south on a new trajectory that would take it over much of the continental
United States.
Over the next several
days, the balloon traveled over some
of the United States’ most sensitive military sites, conducting surveillance
and, potentially, rehearsing for a future attack.
The Biden administration
has declined to specify which sites the Chinese balloon surveyed, but it
visibly traveled near at least three sites vital to the United States’ nuclear
capabilities.
These sites included
Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, which oversees 150 nuclear-capable
intercontinental ballistic missile silos; Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska,
which is home to U.S. Strategic Command; and Whiteman Air Force Base in
Missouri, which operates the Air Force’s B-2 bomber.
Paul Crespo, president of
the Center for American Defense Studies, said that the balloon’s trajectory
could “absolutely” suggest that communist China was conducting a dry run for an
attack using balloon-mounted weapons.
Particularly, Crespo
warned that the regime could use high-altitude balloons to conduct
electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks on vital U.S. bases and infrastructure.
“While China has
tested hypersonic missiles launched from
balloons in the past, that isn’t a likely use for these
airships,” Crespo told The Epoch Times in an email.
“The biggest threat is
sending one or more of these high altitude balloons over the U.S. with a small
nuclear EMP device.”
The EMP Threat
EMPs are bursts of
electromagnetic energy that disrupt communications and damage electronic
equipment. An EMP can be created by nuclear missiles, radiofrequency weapons,
and natural phenomena such as geomagnetic storms.
While any nuclear weapon
can create an EMP, specialized EMP weapons such as so-called super-EMP bombs generate
particularly strong gamma radiation that multiplies the effect of the pulse,
extending the destruction over a greater range.
It has long been believed
that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China
as a single-party state, is developing such
weapons for a potential conflict with the United States.
“Detonated at extremely
high altitude, EMPs could knock out power and communications across the U.S.,
wreaking widespread havoc for a year or more without firing a shot on the
ground,” Crespo said.
In most scenarios, such a
detonation would need to occur at a higher elevation than the Chinese spy
balloon was at in order to cause destruction across a vast swath of territory.
If the EMP’s purpose were
to knock out a smaller target, however, such as a nuclear command and control
facility, a balloon like the one shot down over the weekend would be a
near-perfect delivery device.
Crespo, who previously
served as a Marine officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, said that the
spy balloon also likely provided the CCP with unprecedented intelligence on
U.S. nuclear facilities.
“Despite those who claim
otherwise, the unprecedented slow-moving Chinese surveillance balloon across
the entire U.S. gave China intelligence it couldn’t otherwise get on nuclear,
communications, and other critical targets,” Crespo said.
Political Fallout
Though perhaps not as
terrifying as an electromagnetic attack on the United States’ nuclear
facilities, Crespo said that the spy balloon incident gave the CCP something
nearly as important: A propaganda victory designed to undermine the will of the
United States and its allies.
“The balloon tested U.S.
surveillance and counter-surveillance abilities and reactions,” Crespo said.
“But, most importantly, it tested political will, and Biden’s willingness to
let it cross the U.S. before finally downing it failed that test.”
“Biden’s weak response
gave China a major win on all counts.”
Crespo is not the only
one who has expressed ire over President Joe Biden’s apparently slow response
to the violation of U.S. sovereignty.
“China’s brazen and
unapologetic violation of American sovereignty last week demonstrates how
little the CCP respects the Biden administration,” said Rep. Tom Tiffany
(R-Wisc.) in an email to the Epoch Times.
“Communist China is the
number one threat to American national security and economic security, and it
is time to start treating them that way.”
Similarly, House Foreign
Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said that the Biden
administration should never have allowed the spy balloon to enter U.S.
airspace.
“The administration should
have taken care of this before it became a national security threat,” McCaul
told The Epoch Times in an email.
“I hope we will be able
to recover the wreckage to help determine what intelligence the CCP collected
while its spy balloon was over our country for days.”
A spokesperson for the
House Foreign Affairs Committee said that the committee requested both
classified and unclassified briefings on the incident to inform members and
staff as to why the balloon was allowed to fly over so much of the United
States before being shot down.
Adding to the intense
political fallout was the Biden administration’s apparent intent to conduct
business as usual with China.
Indeed, the Biden
administration initially decided not to
disclose the existence of the spy balloon to the American public, fearing that
knowledge of the violation of U.S. sovereignty would derail Secretary of State
Antony Blinken’s then-planned trip to Beijing.
The administration’s
plans to conceal the incident were thwarted, however, when images of the
balloon taken by Montana photographers Larry Mayer and Chase Doak and published in the
Billings Gazette burst the story wide open for the whole world to see.
“This is exactly what journalism
is designed for,” Doak said in a tweet. “Americans had a right
to know that a foreign government was spying on them. Glad I could be a part of
bringing it to light.”
Rep. Mike Rogers
(R-Ala.), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, said that the
administration’s decision to conceal the existence of the balloon was of grave
concern, and referred to the entire incident as a national security failure.
“I remain deeply
concerned by the Biden administration’s decision to allow the spy balloon to
traverse the United States,” Rogers said in a prepared
statement.
“It’s clear the Biden
administration had hoped to hide this national security failure from Congress
and the American people. Now, the White House must provide answers about why
they decided to allow a CCP spy balloon to cross the United States and what
damage to our national security occurred from this decision.”
The White House and
Department of Defense did not return requests for comment.
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