Does the Chinese Balloon Matter?

Question

It seems to me that the Chinese balloon is more of a PR problem than defense problem. The Chinese no doubt have plenty of satellites providing excellent coverage of the US from the air and I can&rsquo;t imagine that having a balloon at 11 miles in the air would make much difference from a satellite.Obviously the incursion is unacceptable and should be dealt with but is it anything more than defense theater?

disadvantage · Accepted Answer

> is it anything more than defense theater?
Not shooting it down over the Aleutians, where almost no one lives, and then keeping it secret until it was over Montana: that's what made it theater.
Not theater would be: just shooting it down and saying "Routine air defense. Move along. Nothing to see here."

gsatic · Answer

Decent test to see how the system reacts to randomness.
The last 20 years has shown us, whatever accumulates Clicks has the potential to fuck with the minds of the entire population and waste everyone's time and energy.
Therefore is it possible to trigger mass mental meltdown events? If you can elevate threat and get the whole chimp troupe excited with 1 Ballon, what can you achieve with 10 or 30? I hope the Chinese conduct that experiment.

AlbertCory · Answer

> is it anything more than defense theater?
Not shooting it down over the Aleutians, where almost no one lives, and then keeping it secret until it was over Montana: that's what made it theater.
Not theater would be: just shooting it down and saying "Routine air defense. Move along. Nothing to see here."

gwnywg · Answer

I have originally red this question thinking it's about some economy balloon or something of that sort. Now I learned there was a Chinese balloon flying above US and that it was headlines in news, looks like my quest to ignore news was success :)

ericalexander0 · Answer

Does perception matter? The perception of both US and Chinese capability in the eyes of their citizens, and the world? The perception that a cold war could turn to a hot war?

Does the Chinese Balloon Matter?

> is it anything more than defense theater?Correct. It's also newsworthy and because it's China, Natsec Twitter is full of loonies claiming it's an act of war, and promoting the story way beyond the attention it should be getting.

I have originally red this question thinking it's about some economy balloon or something of that sort. Now I learned there was a Chinese balloon flying above US and that it was headlines in news, looks like my quest to ignore news was success :)

Does perception matter? The perception of both US and Chinese capability in the eyes of their citizens, and the world? The perception that a cold war could turn to a hot war?

> is it anything more than defense theater?
Correct. It's also newsworthy and because it's China, Natsec Twitter is full of loonies claiming it's an act of war, and promoting the story way beyond the attention it should be getting.