Our Military Brass Is Blaming This for the Chinese Spy Balloon Incursion

The Chinese spy balloon circus is over, but now it’s question time for the Biden administration who let this espionage device from Beijing float around for days. Over the weekend, we finally took down the balloon in the Atlantic Ocean, near the Carolinas. How could this happen? It wasn’t traveling at supersonic speeds, and our tracking devices could have stopped it when it was hovering near Alaska. This balloon could have been shot down before it reached US airspace.

We all know the Pentagon is concerned about American citizens being killed by falling objects. The floating spy circus had enough equipment to span three bus lengths—we get the security concerns, but the delay in action is another matter. Spencer wrote Monday about the latest twist of this episode. Could have been carrying explosives. Sounds like something you shoot down when it’s near Alaska, right? Maybe not. It would appear that all is not well at Pentagon in terms of detection capabilities. An blame game is being played by the brass “awareness gap” For the spy balloon incursion, (via WaPo): 

Monday was a day when the U.S. top general responsible for protecting North American skies stated that past Chinese balloon incursions had gone unnoticed by the Pentagon. He described it as a serious problem that needs to be addressed. 

The Defense Department has acknowledged that the craft shot down Saturday off the South Carolina coast after a days-long journey across the U.S. mainland marked at least the fifth time in recent years that Beijing has breached the nation’s airspace using such technology. Officials informed lawmakers over the weekend that, dating back to Donald Trump’s presidency, there had been similar breaches near Texas, Florida, Hawaii and Guam. 

“As NORAD commander, it’s my responsibility to detect threats to North America,” During a news conference, Gen. Glen D. VanHerck spoke to reporters about the North American Aerospace Defense Command. “I will tell you that we did not detect those threats. And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out.”

“It was my assessment that this balloon did not present a physical military threat to North America — this is under my NORAD hat — and therefore, I could not take immediate action because it was not demonstrating hostile act or hostile intent,” Gen. VanHerck told reporters.

— Dan Lamothe (@DanLamothe) February 6, 2023

Someone fell asleep at the switch? That’s probably not what happened, given the highly professionalized state that is our military, but not caring is another matter. As Spencer included in his post about this balloon of Chinese spy goods, Gen. VanHerck added, “It was my assessment that this balloon did not present a physical military threat to North America — this is under my NORAD hat — and therefore, I could not take immediate action because it was not demonstrating hostile act or hostile intent.” 

Is this how he ran it up the chain? It’s astonishing but it seems Biden, who wanted to shoot down the balloon, would have probably greenlit taking down the device before it hovered over Montana, at least one would hope. There are still many questions, especially as the Biden crew and their allies continue to tell the story that Chinese spy balloons entered the US airspace. Ex-Trump officials have denied such breaches by Chinese spy devices, but let’s toy around with this for a second. If this were true, then did the brass refuse to update their commander in chief—Trump— on real-time security breaches? 

There’s a House Armed Services Committee hearing on this later this morning. We’ll keep you updated, but don’t hold your breath.