A ballooning confrontation

The recent shooting down of a Chinese balloon in US airspace has put the spotlight on the use of balloons for espionage. Surveillance balloons have been used since the late eighteenth century for military purposes.

. During the Franco-Austrian war in 1859, for example, France is known to have employed crewed balloons. They were even used during the American Civil War (1861–1865), when the Union Army set up the Balloon Corps in 1861 for aerial reconnaissance. Surveillance balloons were more common during the World Wars and have since been used in most wars to gather intelligence about enemy movements.

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. In the 1950s, President Eisenhower authorised Project Genetrix, managed by the US Air Force, Navy, and CIA. Surveillance balloons flew over Eastern Europe, the USSR, and even China, at heights varying from 30,000 feet to 60,000 feet. President Eisenhower had justified the use of these balloons to collect data for preempting the possibility of a surprise nuclear attack on the Nato countries. Project Moby Dick of the US Air Force enabled the use of surveillance balloons over Russian defence installations. During the Cold War, both the US and the USSR used balloons for spying across the Iron Curtain. The US “Project Flying Cloud’ intended to use balloons for delivering weapons of mass destruction, though it was abandoned due to the dangers posed by its lack of accuracy. During the war in Afghanistan, the US helium balloons over the skies of Kabul and Kandahar became game changers.

. Surveillance balloons are cost-effective monitoring platforms equipped with high-tech surveillance gear. They do not require a launch vehicle, unlike satellites. Moreover, they can be placed at low altitudes, with the possibility of even being retrieved, repaired, and relaunched.

. Technically, the balloons carry high-powered surveillance radars to monitor 24x7 a variety of activities. They are used to gather geospatial intelligence. Balloons can even share data with one another as well as pass on the data they collect to the ground. Experts suggest that they can even be used to gather electronic signals and intercept communications. For example, US Customs and Border Protection have even experimented with using low-flying balloons to monitor the US-Mexican border. Spy balloons produced by Lockheed Martin called aerostats have been used to spy on regions like the Middle East as part of the war on terror.

. The shooting down of the Chinese balloon has opened Pandora’s box, which shows the fragility of US-China relations. All that one has to do is trace the path of the balloon right from the north of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, into Canadian airspace, and then back into the US air defence zone in Idaho and onto Montana (which hosts Minuteman III ICBMs) all the way to South Carolina, traversing through some of the most militarily sensitive regions of the US.

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. The Chinese justification was that it was a wayward weather balloon. Even if these balloons are used only for meteorological reasons, they still have military applications. There is now proof to suggest that the Chinese balloon was a high-tech surveillance balloon to monitor sensitive areas and was hence felled by an air-to-air missile off the coast of South Carolina.

. Incidentally, Chinese balloons have also been spotted over places like Gaum and Kauai (the US missile test range). One wonders if this is the Chinese way of squaring off against US flights in the South China Sea.

. Technically, balloons are subject to fewer restrictions than drones and are widely used for military and intelligence operations. This will give countries like China a certain dominance in the near-space region. Perhaps it also brings out the risks of having international commercial collaboration with Chinese companies, especially on dual-use technologies. The case of Kuang-Chi Science Limited is revealing. The company was started by a Chinese national who was accused by the US State Department of stealing intellectual property from the US Defence Department-funded lab at Duke University. In what are apparently civilian collaborations, the Chinese have stood to gain.

. Since the 20th century, the world has seen the ubiquitous use of espionage balloons. The fact is, many countries have a long history of using surveillance balloons for intelligence gathering, both internally and externally. China is not unique in its use of espionage balloons. Many countries see opportunities in using high-altitude spy balloons as a game changer. Over the years, the spy balloons have gotten more sophisticated and evasive. One wonders whether the use of spy balloons is after all such a big deal!

. (The writer is a professor at the Dept. of Intl Studies, Political Science and Histrory, Christ (Deemed to be) University, Bengaluru.)

A ballooning confrontation

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