The Pentagon has released a photo of the alleged Chinese spy balloon. It shows the balloon hovering over the mainland of the United States on February 3, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. The photo was taken from the cockpit of a reconnaissance aircraft of the US military. Just one day later, the US military shot down the Chinese balloon off the coast of the state of South Carolina over the Atlantic.
The recovery of the balloon had already been completed at the end of last week. The debris is now being evaluated by the counterintelligence office of the Federal Police FBI. "Most of the balloon, including the cargo, has been recovered," Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said. She did not want to give further details on the evaluation of the debris and referred to the FBI.
The US accuses China of wanting to spy on military facilities with the balloon. Beijing, on the other hand, speaks of a civilian research balloon that has gone off course. The incident caused additional tensions in the already strained relationship. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China's top foreign policy chief Wang Yi met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last weekend. At first, however, there were no signs of relaxation afterwards.
One location over which the balloon stayed for a long time was Malmstrom Air Force Base at Great Falls in Montana. There are units of the "Air Force Global Strike" command, which includes Minuteman III missiles, i.e. nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. Experts also point out that newer balloons have advantages over satellites: they can not only capture movements over a longer period of time, but also siphon off communication. The technology that is mounted on the balloons has improved dramatically in recent years. It is also smaller and lighter – which increases the control capability of the balloons. The National Security Agency (NSA) and the United States Strategic Command, which oversees military nuclear facilities, have improved communications technology at nuclear military facilities in recent years.
The Pentagon pointed out that there had been several balloon incidents in recent years, but this had only been discovered in retrospect. With regard to the domestic political debate, it was important for the government to emphasize that there had been three such overflights during Donald Trump's term of office alone. Unlike this time, however, most of the incidents would have occurred in the Pacific, some near Hawaii, where the Indo-Pacific Command of the American forces has its headquarters.
In retrospect, Washington is now discussing whether it was a mistake not to have shown Beijing limits earlier and made it clear that it does not accept violations of its own airspace.