I’m not sure it was detected before Montana
New details are coming out daily. Apparently, the US military or Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) were aware of the spy balloon even before it entered over US airspace:
Washington CNN — A day before the suspected Chinese spy balloon entered US airspace over Alaska, the Defense Intelligence Agency quietly sent an internal report that a foreign object was headed towards US territory, military and intelligence officials familiar with the matter told CNN.
The spy balloon entered the continental US on Jan. 31:
On January 31, the balloon had crossed out of Canada and into the Lower 48. And concerns that the balloon had been sent by Beijing explicitly to spy on the mainland US were confirmed when NORAD observed the balloon “loitering” over sensitive military facilities, multiple sources familiar with the intelligence told CNN.
However, senior officials and the president were not immediately made aware of it:
Sources familiar with the report said that the White House was not made aware of the DIA report, and President Joe Biden was not briefed on it.
Senior administration officials appear not to have been made aware of the balloon until on or near January 28, when it crossed into Alaskan airspace, including America’s top-ranking general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.
Biden, according to senior administration officials, was not briefed until three days later, on January 31, when the balloon crossed out of Canada and into the continental United States. At that point, Biden asked the military to present options “immediately” to shoot the balloon down, officials said.
BUT, what I've been wanting to know is when and why was the spy balloon deemed a threat. Apparently, it was not deemed a threat by some officials while it was hovering in Alaska, but that assessment changed once the balloon made a sharp turn heading to the continental US:
Instead of treating it as an immediate threat, the US moved to investigate the object, seeing it as an opportunity to
observe and collect intelligence.
It wasn’t until the balloon entered Alaskan airspace, on January 28, and then took a sharp turn south that officials came to believe it was on a course to cross over the continental US – and that its mission might be to spy on the US mainland.
All of the excerpts are from
CNN reporting.
I would argue that a spy balloon is a threat, in terms of national security, when it crosses any where into US territory. The problem here it seems that the balloon wasn't taken seriously, as if there's nothing significant about Alaska to gather intelligence on. I would've shot it down just for violating our airspace, esp. knowing that it's from one of our adversaries. They would've done the same to us!
But I think the a big reason it wasn't shot down was because of this:
Once it was over US territory, officials have argued that the benefits of gathering additional intelligence on the balloon as it passed over far outweighed the risk of shooting it down over land.
The US sent up U-2 spy planes to track the balloon’s progress, according to US officials.
For now, I think that some US officials are being dishonest or not being upfront. If it's the case, they should just acknowledge that the spy balloon was not shot down over the Pacific ocean or Alaska because they did not want to bring it down yet, and instead preferred to observe it to gather intelligence. But to not even notify the president until days later is also problematic. If i were Biden, I would acknowledge that some of the errors or deficiencies when it comes to lapses in communication and action. I don't think we could put up with another response that allows another balloon to float through American airspace without notifying the public, the president, and subsequently shooting it down as soon as possible.
