that balloon was a lot scarier than it looked. here’s why.
The Chinese spy rig
A thriller author hurries through the revolving doors on the first floor of a skyscraper at the corner of Broadway and 57th. He signs the security book, bustles through the turnstiles, punches a button for the sixty-third floor, and taps his foot nervously during the ascent.
With the elevator doors half-open, he bangs a shoulder as he leaps forward. He dashes by cubicles of fact-checkers, ignores a hello from a copywriter friend, and, breathless, throws open the door to his editor’s office. There, steadying a wobbling chair, he proclaims, “Tom, I’ve got it! I’ve got it!”
“Really? Seriously?” says the grizzled editor, rising from behind his desk, always a sucker for a new twist on a geopolitical thriller. “What is it? What’ve you got?”
“Okay. Here goes.” The author takes a breath to steady himself. Then, eyes blazing, launches into his pitch. “Picture this. A rogue Chinese military intelligence unit launches a balloon to surveil sensitive American military sites and—”
“Wait. Did you just say a balloon?”
“Yeah. A high-altitude spy balloon. And, well, see, as it floats over the wilds of Montana, our hyper-politicized command structure grapples with a response. As tensions mount, we’re set on a course of events that could lead to… to… our hero having to battle a rogue spymaster, who… well… you see the premise, right?”
“No. I don’t. Not even remotely believable.”
As Mark Twain said, truth is stranger than fiction. And this time, the strangeness is concerning. Whatever else you may think of this ham-fisted espionage event, the balloon marks a chilling turn in this new Cold War.
First off, we don’t have to wait for an administration briefing to know this wasn’t a “civilian airship” doing weather research. China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has openly pursued intelligence collection in what they call “near space” for the last decade. About ten years ago, a PLA Daily article titled Near Space – A Strategic Asset That Ought Not Be Neglected, quoted a senior Chinese researcher extolling the virtues of high-altitude balloon intelligence collection.
In that same PLA Daily, the researcher went on to say that “low-dynamic craft” with propulsion for navigation in near space could be used for electronic and communications intelligence. Later, in 2015, the PLA had an exhibition where they showed off models of airships meant to collect intelligence in the stratosphere (see photo). What a coincidence China’s “civilian airship” should happen to pass over US air and naval bases that form two legs of our strategic nuclear triad.
PLA Airship design at a Chinese aeronautics expo
Intelligence collection isn’t just about imagery. It’s about analyzing signals emanating from the ground—electronic, communications, and electromagnetic. By passing over sensitive American military sites the balloon was trying to hoover up clues about the way the US strategic military command works.
China’s brazen airborne spy op goes from strange to scary when you consider its own growing nuclear arsenal. In December, the US Strategic Command reported to Congress that the Chinese have now surpassed the US for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. It certainly makes sense that if they were going to build up this missile force, they’d want to know how the US ICBMs at Montana’s Maelstrom AFB and the missile submarines at Charleston Naval Base work. Those are the grim facts.
But in an age where SpaceX is launching tens of thousands of low-earth-orbit (LEO) StarLink satellites, why would China use a balloon over America’s most sensitive military sites?
At least part of the answer is simple physics. The farther a satellite sits above our spinning earth, the less speed it needs to stay in orbit. While a satellite in geosynchronous orbit is 23,000 miles above a given spot on the equator, a LEO satellite whizzes by its target at 17,500 miles per hour to stay a mere 300 miles above the planet. Since it’s lower, the LEO bird can detect richer signals from the ground.
According to a November 2022 DOD report China has approximately “260 (LEO) satellite-based intelligence systems.” And with a manageable number like that, it’s a fair bet that our own intelligence agencies would have a pretty good idea when they’re overhead. What else would our new Space Force do all day but think about countering these things?
But you know what nobody seems to have been thinking about? Gondolas.
Paradoxically, a balloon-based surveillance platform floating along at 60,000 feet has several spying advantages over a sophisticated LEO satellite. First, there’s the difficulty of putting a big payload into orbit. According to NORAD, the spy balloon’s payload was about a ton—four times the weight of a LEO StarLink satellite. Second is the relative ease of launch. All it takes is a bunch of compressed helium or hydrogen to get the spy machine aloft—an easy covert operation from anywhere that could evade American detection. Finally, unlike a LEO bird, the biggest advantage is that a balloon in the stratosphere can loiter for long periods over an intelligence target at a relatively low altitude.
But all that assumes the balloon doesn’t get blasted out of the sky for violating sovereign airspace.
The altitude above 330,000 feet (100km), known as the Kármán line, is where we arbitrarily define the beginning of space. The altitude above that line is treated like international maritime waters. Below that altitude, it’s considered sovereign airspace. The Chinese balloon was in clear violation of American sovereignty and as the citizens of Billings have shown us, easily detected by the naked eye. In addition to the politics, another reason NORAD didn’t blast it out of the sky over the Aleutians is that they didn’t see it on radar. How could this be?
During the last Cold War, the Soviets regularly flew lumbering TU-95 Bear reconnaissance planes up to the edge of Alaskan airspace. Every now and then, they upped the ante by running supersonic Backfire bombers along the same track. These pokes were meant to measure our systems and see how we’d react. Usually, that entailed a fighter launch from an Alaskan Air Force Base to shoo the bad guys off. The deadly dance continues to this day. Believe it or not, just last week NORAD sent up fighters to intercept two old TU-95 bombers nearing Alaskan airspace… twice!
But in the case of the humble balloon, the Chinese have exploited a hole in our zone defense. Or, as NORAD’s General VanHerck put it, NORAD has “a domain awareness gap.”
A Russian TU-95 Bear long range reconnaissance craft on the edge of Alaskan airspace
The Russians must be slapping their foreheads. How could eighteenth-century technology defeat a modern integrated air defense system like NORAD?
First, the balloon entered US airspace at an altitude where we’re not usually looking for threats—at a steady 60,000 feet, higher than the operating ceiling of most tactical aircraft like the Russian bombers. Second, moving at cloud-speed, it was likely too slow to trigger the doppler effect that a defense radar would even notice. It would show up as noise that NORAD’s algorithms would filter out. Third, a spherical semi-permeable object filled with gas does not reflect a lot of radar energy. And finally, what country would have the temerity to violate American airspace so boldly?
That’s where this balloon thing marks an even scarier turn.
After a zero-COVID policy that threatened the economy and stirred the animal spirits of rebellion among the beleaguered Chinese, a nervous Xi Jinping had started a charm offensive in the west. He’d invited Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, to visit Beijing. It was the first high-level visit to China by an American since 2018. But that was before the spy balloon got the whole trip canceled due to a Chinese provocation that was at best bumbling, at worst intentional.
The spy balloon was most likely launched by the Chinese Strategic Support Force, SSF, a command created in 2015 that integrates cyber, electronic, and space warfare. It launched from Hainan Island, home to China’s satellite launch facilities and a known stronghold of the SSF.
The launch’s poor timing may have been poor communication between Beijing and the far-flung military unit. Or it could have been a deliberate act by a PLA that prefers to stoke tensions with the US to gain political clout.
Either way, once the PLA spy balloon became world news, Xi bent to the hardliners and become more fractious. Various CCP mouthpieces are calling the US reaction to the spy balloon “hysterical,” the head of the PLA refused a call from US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Xi has suddenly decided to go visit Putin and offer assistance for the Ukraine invasion.
Yes, the balloon thing sounded like bad fiction when we all first heard about it.
But as Twain said, truth is stranger than fiction.
