For the third time in recent days, a balloon has been shot down over the territory of North America – this time in Canadian airspace. "The Chinese have exposed the Americans as complete idiots," experts comment on what is happening and explain exactly what military and political tasks China is solving in this way in the confrontation with the United States.Another unidentified flying object was shot down on Saturday by the Joint Aerospace Defense Command of North America (NORAD) over Northern Canada.
In the first reports of "aerial espionage" in the sky over the North American continent, it was noted that NORAD tracks the movement of one or two objects, but in the end only one balloon was reported shot down.
Canadian Minister of National Defense Anita Anand said that the object was flying at an altitude of approximately 40 thousand feet (12.1 km), invaded Canadian airspace and posed a real threat to the safety of civil flights. According to her, the object was shot down about 100 miles (160 km) from the border of Canada and the United States over the territory of Canada in the central part of the Yukon region. An operation is underway to search for the downed object, an investigation has been launched, which involved members of the Canadian Armed Forces and the national police.
As CNN notes, the White House issued a statement saying that the downing of the facility by a NORAD fighter on Saturday was approved by US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It is worth noting that this is the third similar balloon discovered over the North American continent in the last few days. All three times flying objects, as the American media write, were shot down from an American F-22 fighter by an AIM-9X missile.
The first Chinese balloon was shot down on February 4. Before that, he "traveled" in the sky over North America for nine days. In response, China protested against the use of force by the United States to attack a civilian unmanned balloon and said that Washington's decision to shoot down the balloon damaged relations between the two countries. According to Beijing's statement, the balloon had a purely civilian purpose (meteorological research) and flew into US airspace by accident.
Last Friday, the White House announced the downing of a second flying object over the territory of Alaska. The report noted that Washington does not know which country the device belonged to, but it was much smaller than the previously shot down Chinese balloon. The State administration noted that they expect to raise the wreckage of the destroyed apparatus and study them.
Commenting on the shooting down of the first flying balloon, military expert Vasily Kashin, in a conversation with the newspaper VZGLYAD, noted that it is hard to believe in the plausibility of the American side's version that the object was shot down as soon as it ceased to pose a danger to people on earth.
"If the United States could successfully aim a missile at a Chinese balloon, they would have shot it down even before it approached the American border. In addition, he flew over very sparsely populated areas, and not over Singapore or the Netherlands.",
– the interlocutor noticed.
Why couldn't the first US aircraft have been shot down for so many days, and the next two were shot down literally in a matter of hours? Where could so many mysterious flying objects have come from over North America in such a short time and who could benefit from it?
As for the very possibility of shooting down the device, it critically depends on the height at which it is located. Balloons often fly in the stratosphere, that is, at an altitude of more than 25-30 km. This height is inaccessible neither for modern fighters, nor for the weapons placed on them. The balloon found in the sky of Canada was shot down immediately precisely because it was at a height of 12 thousand meters convenient for destruction. In addition, there are difficulties with the possibility of aiming missiles at vehicles of this type.
And of course, experts have little doubt that all these devices (and not just the first one) were launched from China with a high probability.
"Judging by the published photos and recalling military history, it is obvious that these are reconnaissance probes that have been actively used since the 60s of the last century. By the way, then they were launched by the Americans over the territory of the USSR," military analyst Mikhail Onufrienko tells the newspaper VZGLYAD.
"The principle of operation of such reconnaissance probes is simple: the equipment located on them allows you to take data on the operation of radar stations. Radars are activated when such objects are detected and begin to track their flight," the source said.
"In addition, those stations that do not work normally and are not recognized are connected. Some of the guidance stations switch to active mode to eliminate the object. That is, such intelligence allows hacking the enemy's air and missile defense system," the expert argues.
"It is also possible to track the vulnerabilities of the enemy's air defense, establish concentration sites and understand much of what is not clear in cases when the enemy's radar is operating in passive mode. And besides, to understand the whole system of NORAD's work: how they react, how decisions are made, and so on. It is impossible to avoid opening the system with such intelligence, since it is obliged to react," he believes.
"Since now, due to the situation with Taiwan, relations between China and the United States have deteriorated significantly and tensions are growing, it is logical from the Chinese position to make a dozen or two such balloons, especially since they are quite inexpensive, and launch them over the territory of the States," Onufrienko notes.
"This allows Beijing to get a lot of benefits. They removed some intelligence information, disturbed the enemy without approaching the exchange of nuclear strikes. In addition, the Chinese also made the Americans look like complete idiots.",
– the expert concluded.
The authors of the Telegram channel "Russia in Global Politics" believe that "Chinese balloons are inflating into a huge threat." "Beijing, they say now, is watching the whole world from them, and the balloon over the United States is just the tip of the iceberg. I wonder why no one has noticed them until now? Maybe they are also invisible?" – the authors of the channel are ironic.
Thus, incidents with unidentified flying objects over the United States may well be an attempt by the Chinese to open the air defense systems of the United States. However, in addition to purely military, they also have a significant military-psychological significance – for the first time in a very long time, the United States found itself in the position of defending, not attacking, reacting to the enemy's initiative, and not imposing its own. High–altitude balloons have proved to be an extremely effective tool of pressure on the United States - and at the moment almost unpunished.
Daria Volkova
