Popped Balloons

On any number of occasions over the past half-decade, my blissful island solitude has been pierced by the unpleasant whir of small drones, which people inexplicably enjoy flying on the beach.

If I had a drone, I wouldn’t take it to the beach. Because what’s there to see? Just sand and water. If you buy a drone, and the point is to get a neat bird’s-eye view of something, good candidates might include large cities, canyons at sunset or maybe a nice river gorge. Not long stretches of boring beach.

But Americans have a long history of hauling their toys onto the sand when they go on vacation. You learn it as a child and you never get over it. When you’re three, it’s plastic shovels and buckets. When you’re 23, it’s miniature trampolines. When you’re 33, it’s drones. (When you’re 73 it’s metal detectors.)

I won’t lie: It’s terribly annoying when someone flies a drone into your general vicinity, but unlike nation states, people don’t really “own” the airspace around their homes, and if you don’t live deep in the county (i.e., well outside of city limits), you’re not supposed to discharge firearms into the sky. So, there’s not much you can do if a 40-year-old adolescent on vacation wants to fly a drone into your “sovereign” airspace.

When that happens to me, I calmly remind myself: It could be worse. I could live in Kabul, the drone could be armed and the people operating it might’ve mistaken me for someone I’m not.

But if I were the leader of a powerful nation-state (in this case the US), and I owned the airspace, and if the drone were a spy balloon operated by my sole legitimate competitor for 21st century military hegemony (in this case China), and if the citizens who trust me to safeguard them from external threats knew the balloon was floating around watching them, I’d shoot it down.

Because what else could I do without facing nervous questions from an irritable public already prone to xenophobic hysteria thanks in part to my predecessor’s insistence on using the highly technical medical term “China virus” to describe a pathogen which killed more than 1 million Americans.

“They successfully took it down and I want to compliment our aviators who did it,” Joe Biden said, of the F-22 which on Saturday murdered what Beijing insisted was a wayward weather balloon at 60,000 feet with a Sidewinder missile.

In some ways, it was an absurd spectacle — a made-for-Twitter show of force. In other ways, it was the only thing Biden could’ve done. The US is locked in a race for technological and military superiority and the stakes quite literally couldn’t be higher: Winner gets the world. Optics matter.

China’s claim that the airship was a climate research vessel blown off course was patently ridiculous, and some Republicans took the opportunity to suggest Biden should’ve blown it out of the sky as soon as the US knew of its existence. White House officials said it posed no threat to civilians on the ground, although that assessment presumably wouldn’t apply in the event the US shot it down over a residential area, risking a scenario where the balloon’s payload (described as “the size of several buses”) fell on someone’s home. House Republicans aren’t famous for risk-reward analysis — just ask the debt ceiling debate.

The Chinese have satellites, of course, and just like every other powerful state in the world, they have a pretty good idea about where the US keeps its nukes and conducts key military research and so on. How incrementally valuable or differentiated any intelligence the balloon might’ve gathered is debatable in that context.

Antony Blinken canceled a planned trip to China, where he might’ve met with Xi Jinping. After initially offering a pseudo-apology, the Chinese government responded angrily on Sunday. The foreign ministry called Biden’s decision to Top Gun the balloon a flagrant example of overkill. “China strongly disapproves of and protests against the US attack on a civilian unmanned airship by force,” a statement read, adding that,

The Chinese side has, after verification, repeatedly informed the US side of the civilian nature of the airship and conveyed that its entry into the US was totally unexpected. The Chinese side has clearly asked the US side to properly handle the matter in a calm, professional and restrained manner. The spokesperson of the US Department of Defense also noted that the balloon does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground. Under such circumstances, the US use of force is a clear overreaction and a serious violation of international practice. China will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the company concerned, and reserves the right to make further responses if necessary.

“When conditions permit, I plan to go to China,” Blinken said, in postponing a visit that was billed as yet another attempt to reset a relationship that continues to deteriorate despite all the “good people on both sides.”

Apparently, China flew similar, albeit less capable, surveillance balloons over the US during the Trump years. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Trump was made aware of their existence. If he wasn’t, it was probably for the best.