For seven days, the United States military and political high command failed to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon as it flew serenely across the continent. Because this embarrassment redounds to the discredit of senior civilians and generals alike, it is doubtful if the public will ever be told why the baffling delay.
The timeline is clear enough. The North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) is responsible for detecting incursions into our sovereign air space. On or before January 28, NORAD detected a 200-feet tall Chinese balloon with a metallic payload of 2,000 pounds. Upon discovering the balloon, NORAD’s commander, Air Force General Glen VanHerck, would have notified the Pentagon. No action was taken. On January 30, NORAD’s tracking placed the balloon over remote northern Canada. No action. On January 31, the balloon was over Idaho. According to the press, President Biden on that day asked for options to shoot it down. Nothing happened. On February 1, the balloon, over the U.S. missile base in Montana, was seen by U.S. civilians and the press reported it for the first time. On February 2, it was “the strong recommendation by the Chairman of Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley and General Van Herck not to take shoot it down due to the risk to the safety of people on the ground from the possible debris field.” Two days later, when the balloon was over the Atlantic off South Carolina, it was shot down.
On that same day (February 4), NORAD announced that, during the Trump administration, on at least two occasions Chinese balloons were near the U.S. Whether those balloons actually entered our sovereign air space was not revealed. NORAD said it did not know of these incursions at the time they occurred. Instead, the intelligence community pieced together the incriminating data and informed NORAD only after the February 4 shoot-down. Disclosing this detection failure seemed intended to spread the blame ex post facto to the prior administration. Instead, NORAD looked as if it had been too complacent for years.
The military chain of command is clear. The commander of NORAD reports any incursion directly to the Secretary of Defense, who informs the president. Beginning with the very first detection, the NORAD commander has full authority to recommend the balloon be shot down immediately. Of course, he can be overruled by the SecDef, who can be overruled by the president. But that’s it — a very short chain of command of three people. (The chairman of the Joint Chiefs is not in the operational chain of command.)
If he chooses, the NORAD commander can include his probability of any civilian casualties. But he is not responsible for calculating casualties; there are thousands of physicists with clearances who can quickly provide such probabilities.
NORAD, the SecDef, and the president had at least three days in which to shoot down the balloon over vast, unpopulated spaces. All three chose not to do so. The general, the secretary and the president — all appeared to be timid. That they subsequently reversed themselves and after February 4 shot down three still unidentified flying objects is not in itself comforting. If immediate action is the correct policy, then why wasn’t it applied on January 28?