All things: China

[malchior]

Good grief. The administration is now saying the 3 balloons that crossed under Trump? The Trump administration guys were not aware of them due to a capability gap that the Chinese were exploiting. They were only discovered to have happened well after the fact during a re-review in the Biden administration. The right claimed the administration was lying about the previous overflights and this explanation could make them look guiltier.

CNN

The American military had a “domain awareness gap” that allowed three other suspected Chinese spy balloons to transit the continental United States undetected under the Trump administration, the Pentagon general responsible for providing air and missile defense over North America said on Monday.

“Every day as a NORAD commander, it’s my responsibility to detect threats to North America. I will tell you that we did not detect those threats,” Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command said when asked about the three other balloons.

“And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out, but I don’t want to go into further detail.”

VanHerck added that the intelligence community after the fact was able to gather intelligence “from additional means that made us aware of those balloons that were previously approaching North America or transited North America.”

A senior administration official told CNN on Sunday that the intelligence community is prepared to offer briefings to key Trump administration officials about the Chinese surveillance program, which the Biden administration believes has been deployed in countries across five continents over the last several years.

[Max Peck]

Makes who look guiltier of what?

[malchior]

Makes who look guiltier of what?

It gives life to the right-wing claims that the Biden administration look like they were lying about the previous overflights. It puts pressure on their explanations about what they did. Frankly the Biden administration is starting to have a credibility gap when they get pressure from the news cycle. Especially all the missteps they made about the classified documents issue.

Edit: Here I'll explain it in 3 stupid acts.

Act 1

China sends balloon over the United States. The right-wing becomes aware and loses it's mind.

Right-wing: Destroy it. Chyyyyna is evil and will see all our missile bases and assess our verdant vast variety of veritable fields they wish to fasten, foster, and farm.

Normals: Well...spy satellites exist, right?

Right-wing: This is why we are weak. Shoot it down! Trump would have shot it down. I will individually shoot it down with my many arms.

Act 2

The balloon flies over the breadth of the nation and is shot down over the sea.

Biden: I ordered it shot down immediately but the danger was too great!

Right-wing: They stole all our data! You are weak and faltering!

Unnamed official: Thrice Trump's team thought nothing of similar overflights and did even less!

Act 3

The right-wing falls into recriminations and taunts that the Biden administration is lying

Trump officials: I tell no lies! No balloons flew over us and the liar Biden is misleading us to hide that he is a coward and weak!

Pentagon: There were three balloons but they did not know. Our Canadian girlfriend (sorry Max!) found them when she reviewed Google earth photos! They totally happened!

Everyone: Sigh.

[Max Peck]

You're suggesting that a career military officer is fabricating stories at the behest of the Biden administration, in order to support a made-up claim that the other balloon transits occurred?

[malchior]

You're suggesting that a career military officer is fabricating stories at the behest of the Biden administration, in order to support a made-up claim that the other balloon transits occurred?

I was kidding about it (also a strange read) but to be clear I'm saying they have an optics problem because it *looks like they might be lying*. Reality has no place in American politics any longer.

[El Guapo]

You're suggesting that a career military officer is fabricating stories at the behest of the Biden administration, in order to support a made-up claim that the other balloon transits occurred?

I was kidding about it (also a strange read) but to be clear I'm saying they have an optics problem because it *looks like they might be lying*. Reality has no place in American politics any longer.

I'm also confused. Why does it look like they might be lying?

[malchior]

You're suggesting that a career military officer is fabricating stories at the behest of the Biden administration, in order to support a made-up claim that the other balloon transits occurred?

I was kidding about it (also a strange read) but to be clear I'm saying they have an optics problem because it *looks like they might be lying*. Reality has no place in American politics any longer.

I'm also confused. Why does it look like they might be lying?

They claimed the Trump administration had ignored three overflights. The Trump administration flat said it wasn't true and that the Biden administration is lying. Then the Biden administration says...well they didn't know about it which unfortunately gives the claim that the Biden administration was lying some space to live in.

For example, John Bolton snidely remarked that perhaps the administration must have invented a time machine if they want to claim they knew what the Trump administration missed. Forget that he knows we have the capability to record comm intercepts, store vast quantities of imaging data, etc.

The real issue is that someone had to needle the right to make it look like they failed in the past. It was totally unnecessary and probably not desired by the White House to be honest. Now they are clarifying in a way that looks a lot like walking it back. It might all be true and on the up and up but this is the sort of thread that the media loves to play with. I expect there will be several stories deep diving on this explanation.

[Max Peck]

Did any Biden officials say that Trump ignored the overflights, or did they say that the overflights happened during the Trump administration? The only statements I've seen that were sourced from actual administration officials or the military were simply that this wasn't the first balloon overflight. I've seen comments from Twitter randos that the Trump administration ignored them, but not from anyone in the administration.

[malchior]

Did any Biden officials say that Trump ignored the overflights, or did they say that the overflights happened during the Trump administration?

Sort of. It's certainly strongly implied. The right was spending the whole weekend saying they would have done something and several Trump administration officials on Saturday and Sunday said they would have acted quicker. Then an unnamed official pushed back by saying there were multiple flights during the Trump administration. Assuming we have the whole story that's a fact but it leaves out key context such as that the Trump officials didn't know about them. There are potential good reasons to leave it out but it that leads to a credibility problem. It's half the story. It's unfortunate that we only got the full context after Trump official started calling the Biden administration liars about the overflights. This explanation gives that argument credibility it might not have had otherwise.

Edit: Here is the Washington Post coverage. It could just be an artifact of the composition but this sequence is a blend between facts and official pushback on the notion. It could have been a mistake but generally when something is implied this heavily it tends to fly because it was supported by the sourcing.

The Pentagon has not explained why it did not bring down the balloon in the earliest days, when it drifted over the Aleutian Islands and other remote areas where it posed little to no hazard. Once it reached mainland Alaska and Canada, officials said, there were no opportunities to do so without risk of harming civilians. The debris field would have covered an estimated seven-mile radius, they said.

A senior defense official said there have been four previous Chinese balloon incursions over the continental United States, including one early in the Biden administration and three during the Trump administration. Former defense secretary Mark T. Esper, speaking to CNN on Friday, said that he did not ever recall the issue coming up. “I would remember that for sure,” said Esper, a Trump appointee. “My focus was on implementing the national defense strategy to take on the Chinese as the greatest strategic threat facing our country.”

[Defiant]

They also said it happened once early on during this administration.

The “PRC (People's Republic of China) government surveillance balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time,” the defense official said

.

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/ ... index.html

[Zarathud]

Esper is saying that if knew about the balloons, he would have escalated to advance a domestic political agenda. It shows the incompetence of the Trump administration in failing to identify a threat proactively, and in the risk of children responding poorly for selfish reasons.

And China boldly got away with the risk in the meantime, taunting the Republican Party.

[Kraken]

Incidents like this go waaaay back.

[Max Peck]

In addition to tidbits about the most recent Chinese balloon incident, this article has some interesting background on UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) in general.

U-2 Spy Planes Snooped On Chinese Surveillance Balloon

The U.S. Air Force's U-2S Dragon Lady spy planes were among the assets tapped to monitor and collect intelligence on a Chinese government surveillance balloon during its recent trip across parts of the continental United States and Canada. An F-22 Raptor stealth fighter finally shot down the balloon with an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, and efforts are now underway to recover the wreckage from the Atlantic Ocean. Readers of The War Zone can first get up to speed on what we already know about this incident, and its conclusion, in our past reporting here.

A U.S. defense official confirmed the use of the U-2S as part of the broader response to the Chinese spy balloon to The War Zone today. It's not immediately clear all the points along the balloon's voyage that U-2s were present.

[Grifman]

The Chinese make great sci-fi movie:

[Smoove_B]

I guess this is a thing now?

The U.S. military shot down a second "high altitude object" in American airspace, this time off the coast of Alaska on Friday, the White House announced.

The mission occurred less than a week after a high altitude Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina.

White House spokesman John Kirby hesitated to characterize the aircraft as a balloon, saying "we're calling this an object because that's the best description we have right now." He also said U.S. officials did not yet know which nation or group was responsible for it.

The object was destroyed by a missile from an F-22 fighter plane off the far northeastern coast of Alaska, Kirby said at a White House press briefing.

[Isgrimnur]

The object, which the U.S. learned about on Thursday evening, was described as "roughly the size of a small car," Kirby said.

[Smoove_B]

Guerilla marketing for that game is out of control!

[Grifman]

War:

[Max Peck]

There's been a third shoot-down, this one over northern Canada.

NORAD shoots down 'high-altitude airborne object' over northern Canada

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has shot down an unidentified object in Canadian airspace, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Saturday.

"I ordered the take down of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace. [NORAD] shot down the object over the Yukon. Canadian and U.S. aircraft were scrambled, and a U.S. F-22 successfully fired at the object," Trudeau said in a statement on Twitter.

"I spoke with President Biden this afternoon. Canadian Forces will now recover and analyze the wreckage of the object," he said.

[Isgrimnur]

We should let the Canucks shoot down the next one.

[$iljanus]

I wonder how many are actually from China and how many are from perhaps Russia or the secret lizard base under the ice cap

[hepcat]

I wonder how many are legitimately foreign powers performing covert operations. It just seems odd that they’re appearing left and right suddenly. In my mind it can be one of two things. Either the press is broadcasting anything they hear, no matter the truth, and trying to drum up readership; or these incidents were frequent occurrences before and we were ignoring them/doing nothing about them for a long time.

[Max Peck]

My vague impression from the statements I've seen is that the earlier activity was not detected until after the fact (which is supposedly why nobody in the Trump administration knew about it), as opposed to being ignored per se.

[Smoove_B]

Sorry, I can't even keep up anymore. We need a dedicated thread.

So is this #4?

I am in direct contact with NORCOM and monitoring the latest issue over Havre and the northern border. Airspace is closed due to an object that could interfere with commercial air traffic — the DOD will resume efforts to observe and ground the object in the morning.

[Max Peck]

So far, it isn't confirmed that there is anything there. Per a CNN national security reporter:

This appears to have been a false alarm: New NORAD statement says “NORAD detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter aircraft to investigate. Those aircraft did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits. NORAD will continue to monitor the situation.”

[Kraken]

I wonder how many are legitimately foreign powers performing covert operations. It just seems odd that they’re appearing left and right suddenly. In my mind it can be one of two things. Either the press is broadcasting anything they hear, no matter the truth, and trying to drum up readership; or these incidents were frequent occurrences before and we were ignoring them/doing nothing about them for a long time.

I wonder about the connection with the Pentagon's (and NASA's) recently ramped up interest in UFOs -- erm, UAPs.

Ah, here we go: How the search for UFOs helped lead the US government to the Chinese spy balloon.

It appears that the ongoing review by the U.S. intelligence community and the Pentagon of hundreds of Unexplained Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) incidents reported by military personnel was one of the techniques that helped identify that China was carrying out a foreign surveillance program using balloons, according to a U.S. official.

Unexplained Anomalous Phenomena is the federal government’s new term to describe UFOs.

That review of UAP incidents in recent years, required by congressional legislation, helped inform the identification process of the threat posed by China's balloon program and how it was being done according to the official.

However, a senior U.S. official stressed that the UAP findings should not be conflated with the balloons being used with those being used by China. Another official emphasized that China's fleet of surveillance balloons was detected through a broad variety of means.

The UAP review, led by the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office and the Director of National Intelligence, seeks to find explanations for hundreds of reported incidents that now number more than 500.

The DNI's most recent update released a month ago found terrestrial explanations for more than half of the 366 new reported incidents since the first unclassified report released in the summer of 2021.

Balloons or balloon-like entities were found to be the reason for the vast majority of those terrestrial explanations.

[Max Peck]

New unidentified ‘cylindrical’ object shot down over Canada

The incursions in the past week have changed how analysts receive and interpret information from radars and sensors, a U.S. official said Saturday, partly addressing a key question of why so many objects have recently surfaced.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that sensory equipment absorbs a lot of raw data, and filters are used so humans and machines can make sense of what is collected. But that process always runs the risk of leaving out something important, the official said.

“We basically opened the filters,” the official added, much like a car buyer unchecking boxes on a website to broaden the parameters of what can be searched. That change does not yet fully answer what is going on, the official cautioned, and whether stepping back to look at more data is yielding more hits — or if these latest incursions are part of a more deliberate action by an unknown country or adversary.

[$iljanus]

I wonder how many are legitimately foreign powers performing covert operations. It just seems odd that they’re appearing left and right suddenly. In my mind it can be one of two things. Either the press is broadcasting anything they hear, no matter the truth, and trying to drum up readership; or these incidents were frequent occurrences before and we were ignoring them/doing nothing about them for a long time.

Or how many are from "private" entities...

[Smoove_B]

I don't like how this movie is starting:

Some pilots said the object “interfered with their sensors” on the planes, but not all pilots reported experiencing that.

Some pilots also claimed to have seen no identifiable propulsion on the object, and could not explain how it was staying in the air, despite the object cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet.

The conflicting eyewitness accounts are partly why the Pentagon has been unable to fully explain what the object is, the source briefed on the matter said.

[Max Peck]

A balloon floating at 40,000 ft probably wouldn't have a visible means of propulsion.

[Carpet_pissr]

Kiss your butts goodbye. We’ve downed the first Formic/Bugger ship.

[hepcat]

It's worse.



All the pilots in the air reported hearing "Hello, dum dum." as they approached.

[GreenGoo]

I enjoyed this take from Legal Eagle. It's a bit sillier than usual at the beginning, but then they get into the weeds a bit, which I always appreciate.

Legal Eagle re: Balloon shooting

[ImLawBoy]

I wonder how many are legitimately foreign powers performing covert operations. It just seems odd that they’re appearing left and right suddenly. In my mind it can be one of two things. Either the press is broadcasting anything they hear, no matter the truth, and trying to drum up readership; or these incidents were frequent occurrences before and we were ignoring them/doing nothing about them for a long time.

Or how many are from "private" entities...

I'm waiting for us to accidentally shoot down one of our own objects, not that the good ol' US of A would ever stoop to something so vile as espionage.

[GreenGoo]

In the Legal Eagle video they talk about an actual surveillance treaty that exists. The problem (one of many) is that China is not a signatory.

[Jaymon]

A balloon floating at 40,000 ft probably wouldn't have a visible means of propulsion.

“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.”

[Unagi]

A balloon floating at 40,000 ft probably wouldn't have a visible means of propulsion.

“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.”

Don’t Panic

[$iljanus]

Something's tells me like the junk that's floating in space there's a bunch of crap perhaps from researchers or private individuals that gets caught up in wind currents and just circles the globe for a bit... along with the usual spy shit of course.

[malchior]

A fairly interesting piece that is partly persuasive to me. It also leads me to thoughts of China going after fissures in Canadian society while Russia infiltrates the GOP. That would be a fascinating if not grim scenario.

Has China compromised Canada?

After the Chinese Communist Party’s 1949 victory in China’s civil war, the question of “Who lost China” rocked Washington. As President Biden makes his first presidential trip to Ottawa this week, he should ask if the next country about which that question will be asked is Canada.

The loss would not be economic. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade pact continues to underpin a vast economic relationship neither party wants to undermine, although recent Biden administration policies to promote “Buy America” are an irritant that violates the spirit of that agreement. Canada, as the smaller and more trade-dependent partner, cannot afford to lose the privileged access to U.S. markets that the USMCA ensures.

National security is another matter entirely, however. The last decade has seen a dawning realization in Washington of the dangers posed by a resurgent China heading a group of authoritarian revisionists that includes Russia and Iran. These countries chafe under a rules-based international order that thwarts their will and imposes moral, diplomatic, economic, and military penalties on violators, such as Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. They long for a return to unrestrained Hobbesian Great Power competition.

The United States has risen impressively, if slowly, to this challenge. It has provided extraordinary levels of support to Ukraine. It has spearheaded and embraced innovative arrangements, such as the “Quad” (India, Japan, Australia, and the United States) and AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom, and the United States) in the Indo-Pacific, and bilateral defense cooperation agreements and NATO expansion to deter Russian aggression in Europe. Moreover, it has become the world’s largest oil producer and LNG exporter, providing a lifeline to a Europe compelled to reduce its reliance on Russian gas.

Canada, in marked contrast, is fast becoming an honorary Third World country from a national security point of view. This is due, at least in part, to Washington’s benign neglect of Canada, thereby encouraging the belief that Canada could embrace China and indulge in diaspora politics with impunity.

[Isgrimnur]

The last decade has seen a dawning realization in Washington of the dangers posed by a resurgent China

Which was patently obvious in 2000 when they were granted permanent most favoured nation status.