At first, I thought I would make this article about how outright absurd the overreaction over the“Chinese spy balloon” was. My first reaction was just to laugh about it.
There are plenty of good memes I came across, so let’s start with a laugh:
Unfortunately, it seems the US command is actually serious about it. You see, the $815B budget has not covered the oh-so-critical to national safety “balloon gap”.
A balloon gap…
Yeah, really…
Spy balloon?
First, let’s get out of the way that the “spying” nature of this balloon is highly dubious. So far how do we know it was a spying device?
The first part is that it was declared so. When it was floating around aimlessly, passively carried by the wind. The fact that it exactly fits the profile of a normal weather balloon notwithstanding. So it is a spying balloon because the officials said so, before having any data on it…
The second “proof” is that the balloon had antennas. You know … like the kind you would need for a weather balloon to transmit back data…
The antenna COULD collect communications. Do you mean … like what antennas do?
Did they collect any data? Save it, transmit it, encrypt it? No evidence of it at all. Were there special antennas able to spy on top-secret communications? Most likely not.
![Twitter avatar for @abovetheclouds](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/abovetheclouds.jpg)
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFoiVsZQWYAIDKHu.jpg)
Let’s be honest, I am no balloon specialist. I might be horribly wrong about it and it is all part of some fuzzy nefarious plot. Like something out of a James Bond Movie. Or, perhaps more like Austin Powers. But so far, the evidence has been so flimsy that I will stick to common sense.
A balloon will not provide any better imagery than satellites. It will not provide better radio monitoring than an agent on the ground, who could spy much more discreetly. If anything, it is an inferior spying device due to its massive visibility and unpredictable pattern, entirely passive and depending on the winds.
I really did not expect the paranoia and overreaction to continue, with now up to 4 “objects” shot down.
I am also not going to give the US establishment the benefit of the doubt. We must not forget or forgive the “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” lie that killed so many people.
The Iraq War: In the beginning was the lie
The Overreaction
You know something is fishy when you get in less than 24h a coordinated reaction on all media and platforms to something that was never discussed before. Especially if the discussion is remarkably monolithic and re-uses massively the same “talking points”.
Almost as if these “analysts” and “journalists” (none truly deserving these titles) had received the same memo telling what to say about it. Almost…
Look how quickly we went from “Oh, look, a balloon!” to “space war”:
China ‘spy balloon’ wakes up world to new era of war at edge of space
Of course, it turned out into a massive diplomatic crisis, because “the Chinese are SPYING on us”
Blinken postpones trip to Beijing after Chinese spy balloon spotted over US
Not that the spying was important, you see. Nothing happened in fact, by the Pentagon's own admission, no intelligence gain at all. But it is the darn Chinese daring to threaten the land of the free that is unforgivable:
A US military official said the incident is serious because of the “audacity” of the Chinese government, rather than any intelligence gain. While existing satellites are able to gather similar amounts of information, the timing of the spy balloon – right before the planned Blinken trip – and the fact that it is flying right over the continental US contribute to the seriousness of this moment, this official said.
And you know what? The Chinese would not even answer about their ballooning aggression. Or more likely refused to help build a narrative turning a non-event into an international crisis.
U.S. military called China on a crisis hotline during the spy balloon crisis but Chinese officials refused to talk: ‘That’s really dangerous’
By the way, have you been told we are already in a new cold war?
CNN, the Hill, and others apparently did.
Why the Chinese balloon crisis could be a defining moment in the new Cold War
China ‘spy balloon’ signals the start of a new information cold war
Or maybe we should even prepare for an actual war, at least that’s what Forbes is telling us.
And never forget to turn around what your own propaganda is doing, accusing “the enemy” of doing exactly what You are doing.
Who is really using the balloongate for nationalistic fervor?
The Spooky Part
What I find highly disturbing is not that China might somehow have a massive “balloon gap” against the West, or managed to spy on something vital that somehow no other method could have managed before.
Not even the rather crazy paranoia by US officials.
What really spooked me was the general reaction of the public. Otherwise rational or reasonable people went into overdrive as soon as the propaganda started. This is a reaction that was understandable for the invasion of Ukraine, a truly shocking event.
But a balloon?
Are we so easily scared into submission?
Overall, it seems Westerners in general, and Americans in particular are now fully ready for a US-China conflict. They don’t need actual aggression or threat. A balloon the Pentagon actively decided to let fly over all of the US, from one coast to the other, is enough to whip up hysteria.
A key part is how public opinion has been successfully engineered in the last decade.
You just need to look in the comment section of any Youtube video on the topic (like the one above), and you get 90% reactions of “we need to punish China for this”.
For the crime of flying a weather balloon…
The Pre-made Reaction
And make no mistake, the reaction to the “crisis” can be immediate because it was expected to happen. Balloon or not, some form of “Chinese aggression” was going to be preventively sanctioned.
No less than 18 new anti-China Acts are ready and will get passed without a double, sometime soon.
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I have previously commented on how the war in Ukraine is like World War 1 all over again from a tactical point of view.
Well, it seems international relations are there too. This level of paranoia and “preventive measures” against “the enemy” have a 1913 feel that is truly eery.
You would want to convince China that the US is looking forward to war, you would do exactly that.
And the worst is that people are apparently happily on board with the program…
I think this is quite insane, and we all should do our best to resist this idea.
At least, I will try.
Send in the clowns... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOUrnUktTjU