Edward Luttwak
UnHerd, Feb. 14, 2023
“Despite the events of the past week, the United States and its allies should not now divert military funds to build enormously costly national air defences specifically designed to detect and shoot down a handful of aerostats as soon as they enter their national airspace.”
Two things are clear about the four aerostats (“balloons”) that have penetrated the skies above US and Canadian territory in recent days. First, that the US authorities knew almost from the start they were Chinese because they intercepted transmissions of the data they were collecting; and second, that Beijing’s officials who authorised the blatant intrusions were not in the least bit concerned about America’s response if they were detected, or if the balloons crashed to earth. Nor, it seems, were they particularly worried about the danger of collisions with airliners: both the Airbus A380 and the far more common Boeing 787-8/9 can operate just above 43,100 feet, while one of the aerostats was shot down at around 40,000 feet.
The reason for China’s brazen balloon launch is simple. Since 1989, the Communist Party’s leaders have learned that Americans are very similar to the Xiongnu nomads the Chinese encountered 2,500 years ago. While formidable warriors, the Xiongnu were easily manipulated once their chiefs became addicted to Chinese silk robes in place of smelly furs, and to alcoholic beverages.
Each time the Party leadership does something outrageous — from the Tiananmen Square Massacre to the mass campaign to forcibly transform Uyghurs and extinguish Hong Kong’s liberties — US sanctions are loudly threatened or even imposed amid talk of decoupling once for all. Until, that is, key members of America’s ruling class emerge to explain the utter necessity of more trade and more financial cooperation, easily enlisting perennially needy political leaders, bankers and brokers, but also prestigious academic institutions whose leaders seem to view the FBI more negatively than China’s Guóānbù intelligence service.
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