Former President Joe Biden loved the tough-guy whisper, warning foreign bad actors with that famous one-word command, “Don't,” as if America's enemies were waiting for a stern hallway monitor before changing plans, while also treating ice cream as if it were a food group.
Still, his balloon record may be the cleanest snapshot of his strategic instincts: China's spy balloon crossed the country, but a harmless balloon tied to a Boy Scouts project got blasted out of the sky.
The Chinese surveillance balloon entered U.S. airspace in early 2023 and traveled over sensitive military sites before an F-22 shot it down off South Carolina's coast on Feb. 4, 2023. Biden officials cited the danger falling debris could pose to civilians to defend the delay.
Sure. I believe them. Pfft!
Every commander has to weigh risk, yet the same team soon treated far smaller, far less threatening objects as if they were airborne invaders from a bad Saturday matinee. Then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken, then serving in Biden's Cabinet, even postponed a planned China trip after the first balloon embarrassed Washington.
On Feb. 12, 2023, an Air Force F-16 fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder at an object over Lake Huron. Newly released cockpit footage showed a small dark object, described at the time as unidentified, before it disappeared in the missile strike. From the New York Post:
The Biden administration obliterated a boy scout balloon with a $500,000 missile in the wake of their bungled response to the Chinese Spy balloon incident, The Post can reveal.
The US Air Force dispatched an F-16 on Feb. 12, 2023 to confront the apparent “invading” orb over Lake Huron, blowing it to smithereens with what was likely an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile, according to video released last month by the Department of War as part of its second batch of UFO files.
“The F16 shot at a balloon over Lake Huron. After the [Chinese spy] balloon embarrassment, DOD was shooting at every [Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena] they detected,” Tim Phillips, a former interim director of AARO, told The Post.
Sean Kirkpatrick, former director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, later said the target turned out to be a Boy Scouts balloon that had circled the globe eight times.
The missile cost roughly half a million dollars, while the target belonged in a science fair, not a kill box.
Tim Phillips, former acting director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, tied the scramble to the political panic that followed the Chinese balloon mess. Once Biden looked passive against Beijing, the government swung in the other direction.
Radar contacts, hobby balloons, and mystery specks in the sky suddenly drew military attention. Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, then the Pentagon press secretary, said in 2023 that the military acted out of caution after the China incident.
Caution gets expensive when every floating object starts looking like a national emergency.
The Lake Huron case wasn't the only expensive overreaction. The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade, an amateur radio and pico-balloon hobby group, reported that one of its small research balloons went missing around the same time U.S. forces shot down an object over Alaska. From NIBBB:
There has been particular interest in one of our pico balloons, one that transmits call sign K9YO. As noted on our “Locate and Track” page and blog, the last transmission from that balloon received and reported to the WSPR system was on February 11, 2023, and indicated that balloon was near Hagemeister Island, off the southwest corner of Alaska. Since we have not found a transmission from that balloon since that time, we have declared it “Missing In Action”, as we have with previous flights. At that time, K9YO had circumnavigated the globe 6 times and was nearing the completion of a 7th lap. Unfortunately, that’s where the factual information on its location ends.
At that time and as we often do, we used NOAA’s HYSPLIT model to predict where the balloon may go from there. (The graphical output of that model can also be seen on the “Locate and Track”.) It’s important to note that this is a model, the output of which is dependent on the quality of the inputs we provide and predicted weather information. There are plenty of instances in our own experience where the model inaccurately predicted the path. Therefore, using that model output as a sole means of asserting the balloon’s position at a point in time is not supported.
Additionally, it is not unusual for significant periods of time to elapse between received transmissions. This is due to a variety of factors. At the latitude of K9YO’s flight, available sunlight to illuminate the solar panels is a big one. To account for this factor, we’ve experimented with a variety of solar panel configurations. Since it was launched on October 10, 2022, there have been several periods, one as long as 30 days, in which we did not receive a transmission from pico balloon K9YO.
As has been widely reported, no part of the object shot down by the US Air Force jet over the Yukon territory has been recovered. Until that happens and that object is confirmed to be an identifiable pico balloon, any assertions or claims that our balloon was involved in that incident are not supported by facts.
Hobbyists questioned whether a missile had been used against a tiny balloon worth about $12. Officials never fully settled the matter in public, which only made the episode look worse.
Washington had just spent days explaining restraint against China, and then couldn't clearly explain what it had just shot down.
The balloon incident remains a perfect microcosm of the Biden administration's years in office. He wanted the theater of command without the timing that makes command credible.
China's balloon got time, altitude, and a national tour, while a Boy Scouts balloon got a half-million-dollar missile.
Biden's team didn't look tough; it looked rattled, late, and eager to prove a point after the critical moment had passed. China even warned Biden, from the Associated Press:
China responded that it reserved the right to “take further actions” and criticized the U.S. for “an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.”
In its statement Sunday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that “China will resolutely uphold the relevant company’s legitimate rights and interests, and at the same time reserving the right to take further actions in response.” China’s Ministry of Defense echoed the statement later in the day, saying it “reserves the right to take necessary measures to deal with similar situations.”
Nothing like a strongly worded memo.
Americans don't expect perfection from any president, but they do expect judgment. Biden's balloon fiasco showed the cost of poor judgment in plain view, first through delay, then through overkill.
It's a disturbing image, but I can't help but imagine Biden running around the White House wearing robes and sandals while carrying a scepter, yelling, “Off with their head!”
Or, more accurately, “Somebody please give me a balloon to play with!”
The country watched a real surveillance platform float across the map, then watched harmless objects get treated like enemy aircraft. In the end, Biden's “Don't” doctrine found its most decisive victory against a balloon that kids built.
The Biden balloon fiasco gave America delay when China was watching and overkill when kids’ projects were floating. PJ Media cuts through the spin with the blunt truth Washington would rather bury. Join the PJ Media VIP family today and get 60% off with promo code FIGHT.
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