Biden’s ‘Sputnik moment’: Is China’s spy balloon political warfare?

The spy balloon that China sailed over the United States and Canada should compel Americans to ask what, exactly, Beijing is doing. China claims the balloon is a weather “airship” that went off course, a contention the Pentagon dismissed. At a minimum, the balloon has been gathering meteorological intelligence, but its detection over U.S. military sites makes it more likely a component of China’s political warfare campaign against the U.S. and its allies. 

Here’s why the high-altitude vessel — like its antecedents sent previously over Hawaii and elsewhere over U.S. sovereign territory — may be an attempt at political warfare. First and foremost, it reminds Americans that their homeland is vulnerable to attack. In World War II, Japan launched thousands of balloons armed with incendiary explosives, with the aim of killing Americans and damaging U.S. installations. Although many went into the Pacific Ocean and others landed fecklessly across North America, one balloon bomb tragically did kill several Oregonians, including children, who were picnicking in 1945 and, in a separate incident that reflects the role of chance in warfare, nearly disrupted plutonium production at the Hanford facility in Washington state.  

Hanford was producing plutonium for the Trinity atomic test in July 1945 and for the nuclear bombs used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. With this history in mind, we may understand China’s basic message to be that U.S. airspace can be penetrated and we are vulnerable to attack.  

This balloon incident follows China’s hypersonic vehicle and fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS) tests in 2021. If China executed a hypersonic or FOBS nuclear attack against the U.S., we likely would be ill prepared to address it, because of the speed of hypersonics and because a FOBS attack vector may be from the south, rather than the traditionally expected northerly vectors. Together, these incidents convey a powerful message to the Biden administration and the American people: We could bomb your homeland.  

Second, China may perceive President Biden’s decision not to shoot down the balloon — for now — as a sign of weakness. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly advised Biden against downing the balloon, but doing so would send a forceful message that the United States will not tolerate China’s  penetrations of its airspace. This would be within America’s rights as a sovereign state and fully in keeping with precedent. 

China has labored assiduously to down aircraft or drones over its territory or on its periphery in international airspace. In fact, when the U.S. or Taiwan have attempted to penetrate China’s airspace, China has attempted to shoot down the aircraft or vehicle, including the first aircraft lost to an SA-2 — the RB-57 flown by Taiwanese pilot Yin Chin Wong in October 1959, many months before Francis Gary Powers’s U-2 aircraft was downed in Soviet airspace on May 1, 1960. China shot down at least four of Taiwan’s U-2s and other aircraft flown by the “Black Cat Squadron,” a joint effort of the CIA and Taiwan. 

Third, there is much in the political warfare realm that must be accomplished. Even if the U.S. intelligence community is monitoring the balloon’s “take” in real time, making its sojourn valuable for U.S. intelligence, the political warfare aspect could be more important. When the Soviet Union’s Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, orbited over U.S. homes in 1957, the Eisenhower administration was excoriated for allowing the U.S. to fall behind the Soviets in technological development. So, it would appear that China has provided the Biden administration with its own “Sputnik moment” — if it chooses to act upon it — to enlist a whole-of-society response against the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party.  

Accordingly, the Biden administration should execute these measures: 

• Shoot down the balloon and harvest the intelligence yield it may produce, even if modest. The message sent is the required one: China cannot violate U.S. airspace.
  
• Since China sent a message to the U.S., seize the opportunity to inform Americans about the threat that China poses. Treat this event, along with the FOBS launch, as a Sputnik moment — the shock that a foe provides to mobilize the American people — and capitalize upon the threat that China has made. It is incumbent upon the Biden administration to explain to the American people the nature of China’s threat: It could kill them.
  
• Once the balloon is recovered, make public its technologies, including solar panels, many of which are like the ones Americans purchase for their homes, and use the balloon’s technology to reinforce the warning to Americans that using China’s technology — including apps such as TikTok or Huawei’s 5G or other technologies — is like having an ever-present balloon floating overhead, collecting intelligence on Americans.
  
• Reciprocity is needed in political warfare. Postponing Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing was a smart first step — and the U.S. need not send any balloons over China’s airspace. 

Whereas Eisenhower invested in the military — and many non-military measures, such as STEM education and languages — to best the Soviets, Biden’s job may be fundamentally easier. What he must do is publicize the Chinese Communist Party’s record, and explain why China has become a threat to the world. 

This sordid record includes China’s consistent abuse of human rights of the Chinese people, its genocide against Muslims in Xinjiang, and its global presence to exploit people and the environment through its enterprises such as the Belt are Road Initiative. This reconnaissance balloon can be useful to awaken and mobilize Americans to the threats Beijing has made, but the Biden administration must act with dispatch.

Bradley A. Thayer is director of China policy at the Center for Security Policy and co-author of “Understanding the China Threat.”