By: Victor Davis Hanson

February 10, 2023

1. Do we really believe it was unsafe to shoot down the Chinese balloon over Montana (6 people per square mile), but not over the Aleutians (1 person per square mile), or off the Pacific coast while in U.S. waters?

2. Was it really true that the Chinese balloon was of no danger to U.S. security and an inferior spying device compared to satellites? If so, then:

1) why do the Chinese build them in the first place?; 

2) why was the balloon’s carriage variously reported as large as 2–3 buses?; 

3) why believe the balloon is not adaptable as a weapon?

3. Would China allow a similar U.S. device to cross over its military bases and missile launchers?

4. Are the borders of Ukraine considered more sovereign than our own southern border or airspace?

5. Why do we discount the nuclear threats of the Russians over Ukraine, but seem to fear nuclear Chinese anger when calling China out over its violation of our own U.S. airspace and international law?

6. Why did the U.S. belatedly shoot the balloon down only after it crossed the entire nation? Was it media reporting, growing public anger, or Republican furor, or all of the above?

7. How long did the U.S. know the balloon had violated our airspace before disclosing that fact? Why the hesitation? Ask Gen. Mark Milley whether he called his Chinese counterpart to warn that any Biden order to shoot down the balloon might require forewarning to the PLA.

8. Would Donald Trump have been impeached a third time if, in 2020, he had allowed the Russians to send a similar surveillance balloon across the United States without consequences?

9. What is behind U.S. reluctance to show the same determination to stand up to Chinese aggression as it displays to Russian aggression in Ukraine?

10. Was China signaling U.S. Pacific allies—Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia—that the U.S. is a timid, anemic giant that cannot be counted on to defend them given it won’t even defend its own air space?

Answers? Let us count the ways.

Shorter term. The balloon was really a proverbial trial balloon to assess U.S. reaction as part of calibrating a future American response to an attack on Taiwan. There were advantages to having a slow-moving balloon over a distant rapid moving satellite. The huge carriage of the balloon may have been seen as a platform for various future offensive weaponry.

The nascent Biden administration was humiliated by the Chinese in March 2021 in Anchorage. Ever since, Beijing feels we are anemic and should be constantly tested. The humiliation in Kabul confirmed that view, along with Biden’s initial talk about not reacting in Ukraine if it was a “minor”Russian invasion as well as initially offering Zelensky a ride out of Kyiv.

In addition, the Left feels that American magnanimity earns reciprocal friendship abroad, whereas most like the Chinese consider it weakness to be exploited rather than returned in kind. John Kerry and other Bidenites don’t care about either Taiwanese or U.S. security. They prefer as globalists to enlist China to save “spaceship earth” from melting if global temperature increases by 1 degree. Thus, China sees our green fixations as easy levers by which to play the U.S.

Longer term. China is far richer than Russia, far more embedded within the profitmaking of U.S. elites, universities, and corporations, and thus far more exempt. The Biden family has had 15 years of profitable financial entanglements and is utterly compromised. The Left sees China in domestic diversity, equity, and inclusion terms, and Chinese propaganda accentuates its victim status as an oppressed victim of U.S. racism, while white Russians are caricatured, especially in Hollywood, as villainous, tattooed, bald, deadly mafiosi and greedy oligarchs.

Then there was “Russia collusion!” and “Russian disinformation!” The Left was utterly discredited in pushing lies about Trump-Putin collusion and the Hunter Biden “Russian” laptop. So, it apparently sees Ukraine as redemption, in that Putin really is evil (as if conservatives did not know that already), and by pushing the war can finally show us they were right after all. Again, in contrast, the Left exempts China:

ü don’t dare mention the Wuhan lab birthing of COVID-19; 

ü don’t dare issue a “racist” travel ban in 2020; 

ü don’t dare arrest that PLA agent on your faculty; 

ü don’t dare claim those on-campus “Confucius Institutes” are fronts for the Chinese Communist Party, 

ü and so on.

 Balloonology

By: Victor Davis Hanson

February 10, 2023

1. Do we really believe it was unsafe to shoot down the Chinese balloon over Montana (6 people per square mile), but not over the Aleutians (1 person per square mile), or off the Pacific coast while in U.S. waters?

2. Was it really true that the Chinese balloon was of no danger to U.S. security and an inferior spying device compared to satellites? If so, then:

1) why do the Chinese build them in the first place?; 

2) why was the balloon’s carriage variously reported as large as 2–3 buses?; 

3) why believe the balloon is not adaptable as a weapon?

3. Would China allow a similar U.S. device to cross over its military bases and missile launchers?

4. Are the borders of Ukraine considered more sovereign than our own southern border or airspace?

5. Why do we discount the nuclear threats of the Russians over Ukraine, but seem to fear nuclear Chinese anger when calling China out over its violation of our own U.S. airspace and international law?

6. Why did the U.S. belatedly shoot the balloon down only after it crossed the entire nation? Was it media reporting, growing public anger, or Republican furor, or all of the above?

7. How long did the U.S. know the balloon had violated our airspace before disclosing that fact? Why the hesitation? Ask Gen. Mark Milley whether he called his Chinese counterpart to warn that any Biden order to shoot down the balloon might require forewarning to the PLA.

8. Would Donald Trump have been impeached a third time if, in 2020, he had allowed the Russians to send a similar surveillance balloon across the United States without consequences?

9. What is behind U.S. reluctance to show the same determination to stand up to Chinese aggression as it displays to Russian aggression in Ukraine?

10. Was China signaling U.S. Pacific allies—Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia—that the U.S. is a timid, anemic giant that cannot be counted on to defend them given it won’t even defend its own air space?

Answers? Let us count the ways.

Shorter term. The balloon was really a proverbial trial balloon to assess U.S. reaction as part of calibrating a future American response to an attack on Taiwan. There were advantages to having a slow-moving balloon over a distant rapid moving satellite. The huge carriage of the balloon may have been seen as a platform for various future offensive weaponry.

The nascent Biden administration was humiliated by the Chinese in March 2021 in Anchorage. Ever since, Beijing feels we are anemic and should be constantly tested. The humiliation in Kabul confirmed that view, along with Biden’s initial talk about not reacting in Ukraine if it was a “minor”Russian invasion as well as initially offering Zelensky a ride out of Kyiv.

In addition, the Left feels that American magnanimity earns reciprocal friendship abroad, whereas most like the Chinese consider it weakness to be exploited rather than returned in kind. John Kerry and other Bidenites don’t care about either Taiwanese or U.S. security. They prefer as globalists to enlist China to save “spaceship earth” from melting if global temperature increases by 1 degree. Thus, China sees our green fixations as easy levers by which to play the U.S.

Longer term. China is far richer than Russia, far more embedded within the profitmaking of U.S. elites, universities, and corporations, and thus far more exempt. The Biden family has had 15 years of profitable financial entanglements and is utterly compromised. The Left sees China in domestic diversity, equity, and inclusion terms, and Chinese propaganda accentuates its victim status as an oppressed victim of U.S. racism, while white Russians are caricatured, especially in Hollywood, as villainous, tattooed, bald, deadly mafiosi and greedy oligarchs.

Then there was “Russia collusion!” and “Russian disinformation!” The Left was utterly discredited in pushing lies about Trump-Putin collusion and the Hunter Biden “Russian” laptop. So, it apparently sees Ukraine as redemption, in that Putin really is evil (as if conservatives did not know that already), and by pushing the war can finally show us they were right after all. Again, in contrast, the Left exempts China:

ü don’t dare mention the Wuhan lab birthing of COVID-19; 

ü don’t dare issue a “racist” travel ban in 2020; 

ü don’t dare arrest that PLA agent on your faculty; 

ü don’t dare claim those on-campus “Confucius Institutes” are fronts for the Chinese Communist Party, 

ü and so on.