Pentagon officials, in testimony to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense, said that the balloon wasn’t deemed to be a threat as it crossed Alaska where it didn’t pass over sensitive sites.
They added that no analysis had been done at that point on where the debris from the Chinese craft might fall. The risk to people on the ground was considerable, they said, given that the balloon was 200 feet tall and carried an equipment array the size of a small airplane.
Shooting down the balloon in the waters off Alaska would likely have made recovering it more difficult due to the depth and frigid ocean temperatures, said Melissa Dalton, a senior Pentagon official with responsibilities for homeland defense.
Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims II, director of operations for the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, cautioned that shooting down an intruding craft not seen as an imminent threat might encourage other nations to act hastily if Western planes approached their borders.
“Once you take a shot, you can’t get it back,” Gen. Sims said. “I think it’s important for us to remember that if we establish that precedent… we may meet the same precedent.”
“We may create something that is to our detriment,” he added.
The U.S. has conducted reconnaissance flights in international airspace close to China’s territorial limits, drawing frequent objections from Beijing. In December, a Chinese J-11 fighter flew within 20 feet of a U.S. RC-135 surveillance plane near South China Sea islands controlled by Beijing.
The Pentagon testimony didn’t assuage some lawmakers, particularly Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. Ms. Murkowski said that the Pentagon appeared to be treating potential threats to her state as a secondary concern.
“At what point do we say a surveillance balloon, a spy balloon coming from China is a threat to our sovereignty?” she said. “ It should be the minute it crosses the line, and that line is Alaska.
The “danger to the ground” thing is weird. Either they didn’t know about it until civilians reported it (and it was over populated areas afterwards but I find that hard to believe) or they didn’t care about it.
Because if they really wanted to they’d have issued a “everyone get the fuck indoors we gonna shoot some shit” order and done their best. Montana and those places aren’t heavily populated at all.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-balloon-carried-antenna...
tl;dr - nothing important in Alaska
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Pentagon officials, in testimony to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense, said that the balloon wasn’t deemed to be a threat as it crossed Alaska where it didn’t pass over sensitive sites.
They added that no analysis had been done at that point on where the debris from the Chinese craft might fall. The risk to people on the ground was considerable, they said, given that the balloon was 200 feet tall and carried an equipment array the size of a small airplane.
Shooting down the balloon in the waters off Alaska would likely have made recovering it more difficult due to the depth and frigid ocean temperatures, said Melissa Dalton, a senior Pentagon official with responsibilities for homeland defense.
Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims II, director of operations for the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, cautioned that shooting down an intruding craft not seen as an imminent threat might encourage other nations to act hastily if Western planes approached their borders.
“Once you take a shot, you can’t get it back,” Gen. Sims said. “I think it’s important for us to remember that if we establish that precedent… we may meet the same precedent.”
“We may create something that is to our detriment,” he added.
The U.S. has conducted reconnaissance flights in international airspace close to China’s territorial limits, drawing frequent objections from Beijing. In December, a Chinese J-11 fighter flew within 20 feet of a U.S. RC-135 surveillance plane near South China Sea islands controlled by Beijing.
The Pentagon testimony didn’t assuage some lawmakers, particularly Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. Ms. Murkowski said that the Pentagon appeared to be treating potential threats to her state as a secondary concern.
“At what point do we say a surveillance balloon, a spy balloon coming from China is a threat to our sovereignty?” she said. “ It should be the minute it crosses the line, and that line is Alaska.