Up, Up, and Away, In Xi’s Beautiful Balloon

The carnival of the Chinese balloon transcontinental transit is bringing musical flashbacks, such as this from 1983:

Or going even further back–deep into my childhood:

Groovy, baby.

Seriously though, I am of mixed minds regarding the decision–the Pentagon’s according to Biden–to defer destroying it until it had traversed the US from sea to shining sea. On the one hand, I can perhaps see that there is intelligence value in observing it. On the other, it makes the United States look pathetic before a strutting China.

On balance, I believe the latter consideration substantially outweighs the former. The lame excuse given for not puncturing it with extreme prejudice earlier–that its fall would endanger people on the ground–belies an intelligence collection motive: if that was the reason, just say so! At least that sounds more boss:

And what are the odds of someone on the ground being hurt in Alaska, the Yukon, or even eastern Montana FFS?

And was the benefit to us of the intelligence we collected on the balloon greater than the value of the intelligence the balloon collected on us?

And perceptions are reality. It’s not like this is a new super weapon. Pretty sure we had figured out everything it was doing and capable of doing during the time it was flying over thousands of miles of trackless waste–if we didn’t already know before it breached US airspace over the Aleutians. But the image of a spy balloon flying with impunity over the fruited plain does convey the image of a “pitiful, helpless giant” (to quote Nixon, reading what the just-retired Patrick Buchanan wrote). This is especially true given that there is a pitiful, helpless mental midget holding the position of Commander in Chief.

This reinforces the image of fecklessness that hangs around this administration like a bad smell. And fecklessness encourages recklessness. That is, we have to think about how Xi interprets this, and believe me, he’s not going to believe “we were protecting people on the ground” line for one second.

He may laugh, though.

But after he’s done laughing, he’ll incorporate what he surely perceives as an image of weakness and indecision into his calculus regarding Taiwan and other points of potential conflict.

This raises the question of motive. After all, China has supposedly reined in its “wolf warriors” and was trying to present a more conciliatory face to the US, and the world. Blinken was supposed to meet with the Chinese to help reset relations. (Nod was to remain in the White House.)

One possibility is that this was a test–would the US still proceed with a rapprochement despite a provocation (humiliation, in fact)?

Another possibility–never to be dismissed in one party (but many faction) states–is that elements in the CCP (including, perhaps, aforesaid wolf warriors) wanted to derail any rapprochement, and figured that creating an incident like this was the way to achieve that objective.

Given the opacity of the CCP/Chinese government, it’s hard to say. But under either scenario, the return message should have been: don’t fuck with us. Instead, we sent the message that we are eminently fuckable.

For their part, the Chinese lost their shit when an F-22 FINALLY took down Chairman Xi’s Amazing Flying Machine.* To which we should have replied: fuck you and the balloon you rode in on, commies. Instead, we gave a mealy mouthed, diplomatic reply.

We are in a very fraught period with China. We are trying to recover from “locust years” (as Churchill called them) of military distraction and decay and recover at least a semblance of our former naval and air dominance over China. China is ruled by a megalomaniac with ambitions to crown his achievements by retaking Taiwan. The last thing do do under those circumstances is to convey weakness. And regardless of the true justification for allowing the balloon to traipse over American unhindered, that’s exactly what happened.

The phrase “the balloon went up” means that the situation is very serious. It dates from WWI, when the appearance of a reconnaissance balloon was a harbinger of an artillery barrage incoming. Well, the balloon went up, and to my mind, was brought down far too late.

*The F-22 took down the balloon with an AIM-9X Sidewinder. A testament to how sensitive the heat seeking infrared sensor on that weapon has become. In early versions of Sidewinder it was necessary to get right on the tail of an adversary for the guidance system to be able to pick up the heat signature of the engine. To be able to take down a balloon, which has far less of a heat signature than a MiG’s exhaust, is pretty impressive.

The F-22 pilots used the call signs Frank1 and Frank2, apparently an homage to WWI “Balloon Buster” ace Frank Luke (whom Eddie Rickenbacker called the best pilot in WWI). There is some irony here, though, because it is clear that the current Pentagon leadership is shall we say slightly less aggressive than Lt. Luke.