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There have now been four flying objects shot down by the U.S. military in just over a week, with the first one identified as a Chinese surveillance balloon outfitted with sensors used for intelligence gathering. Though Beijing continues to deny it was a spy vessel, the incident has further strained its ties with Washington and resulted in U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponing a trip to China.
Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten argues a Chinese spy balloon breaching U.S. airspace should have prompted a more purposeful and effective response from President Biden.
China neither fears nor respects America under a compromised Joe Biden. So no one should have been surprised when Beijing brazenly breached our airspace, sending a spy balloon capable of delivering an EMP or hypersonic missile soaring over our most sensitive sites on the eve of a high profile U.S.-China meeting.
This was a power play pure and simple, but it also likely aimed to test our reflexes and resolve. Nor should anyone have been surprised that a Biden administration that has repeatedly kowtowed to China failed this test. Still, baffling aspects of Biden’s feckless response raise questions maybe more troubling than whatever China might have gleaned from the balloon, and about our defensive capabilities in response to it.
Among them, would the Biden administration have ever shot down the spy balloon had civilians not seen it?
Per Bloomberg, Biden administration officials were aware the Chinese balloon had entered U.S. airspace several days before the public, but were intent on “keeping it on the down-low” with the Blinken-Xi Jinping pow-wow at stake.
Officials were reportedly concerned about “a heated political environment ahead of 2024 elections, with Republicans agitating on which party could strike a harder or tougher line on China.” So Team Biden kept the breach of our sovereignty hush-hush for political reasons it would seem.
Only when those pesky Montanans identified the balloon was the administration forced to respond.
The Pentagon reassured us the balloon didn’t pose a threat, and was of “limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective.”
So this was no big deal – and balloons breached our airspace under Trump, too, we were told. Only after the balloon was shot down did Biden say he always wanted to shoot it down.
But that Biden did not strike the spy balloon the second it entered our airspace; that initial reporting on White House deliberations emphasized their political focus; and that the administration downplayed the danger of the balloon and cast its incursion as commonplace, call into question his candor.
