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Republicans Hand China an Intelligence Coup [1]

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Date: 2023-02-08  

With BalloonGate, Republican officials gave China more information than they could ever have imagined by sending sensor systems floating across the country. Far less complicated than Russia’s cyber interventions in the 2016 election, China was provided a treasure trove of valuable data. Importantly, none is likely to have been derived from the balloon payload which was tracked, monitored and communications jammed. Inexpensively, they learned that American politicians are far more interested in their own political agenda than national security. Further, they learned that with minor provocation those politicians, and other aligned former officials, would freely undermine the trust and confidence of the American people.

Barring the introduction of some exotic and previously unknown sensor system, all of the areas transited by the balloon were accessible by other means, especially their satellites. In addition to acting as sensor platforms, “China's counterspace capabilities include directed-energy weapons, satellite jammers, and antisatellite (ASAT) missiles.” The point is their space systems are very sophisticated and highly capable. They have other technical collection means that would not raise the concerns that the visible balloon did. Finally, that hypothesized “unknown sensor system,” if it did exist, would not be placed at risk knowing that it would almost assuredly be compromised at some point.

To be clear China does have a prodigious intelligence collection effort targeting the U.S. and space is but one of them. They have been very aggressive, and successful, with other technical means, especially in the cyber domain. In addition, China has many active agents located here in the U.S. While some of them have been caught, there are undoubtedly many more roaming the country. Given the known locations of the targeted areas, most are vulnerable to public observation at relatively close range. That is raised as the “media experts” often hypothesized about signals interception or radiological monitoring. All would be easily accomplished by covert ground-based sensors that could get access to the targets on a repeated basis which would be far more useful than a brief snapshot of a few minutes on site.

Senator Marco Rubio appeared on several programs making false statements about the American military capability. His quote was, "The message they're trying to send the world is, 'Look, these guys can't even do anything about a balloon flying over U.S. airspace.’” He did state correctly that China believes America is in decline; a notion hard to refute given the election of Trump and the acquiescence of GOP leadership to incompetent members of the far right while still supporting the Big Lie. The notion that the balloon could not be brought down is obviously specious as it was safely terminated over the Atlantic Ocean where the payload contents could be retrieved with no risk. Nonetheless, Rubio continued to reiterate that same false narrative on other outlets.

Among those spreading alarms is Florida Congressman Mike Waltz. In a 6 February op-ed piece, he compared the Chinese balloon incident to Sputnik. He concluded by stating “Much like Sputnik, this balloon didn’t pose any physical threat to those on the surface. Rather, it was intended to send a clear message from the Chinese Communist Party that they no longer recognize the United States as a threat.” Really, they would not consider the strongest military in the world as a potential threat? Waltz is a currently serving Florida National Guard member and must know better. Yet, he prefers to undercut the trust and confidence of Americans.

If those scare tactics weren’t enough to cause the American public to lose confidence in our military capabilities, Representative James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, repeatedly questioned whether the balloon carried bioweapons. In an early interview he commented, “Is it bioweapons in that balloon? Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?” Comer said, referring to the Chinese city where the COVID-19 virus was first discovered. “We don’t know anything about that balloon.” He repeated those comments on a CNN interview with Kaitlan Collins on 7 February. When he was pushed on the obviously false remark, he used the guileful defense of, “I’m just asking questions.” Self-serving, Comer would do or say anything to discredit President Biden even at the expense of the public welfare.

If bioweapons weren’t enough, the specter of a nuclear EMP device carried on the balloon also was raised by so-called military experts. That notion appears to be tagging on to the EMP threat scare that was prevalent for several years. While the threat is real, the idea that China would deploy such a system on a visible platform that would be intercepted defies even a modicum of common sense. Regarding both bioweapons and EMP devices, the Chinese have better delivery systems than balloons. For political gain, the proponents of these ridiculous theories seem determined to undermine the trust and confidence of the public in the ability of the government to protect them. Like Russia, China is appreciative of those misguided efforts as fomenting citizen’s distrust in the U.S. Government is a strategic objective of both adversaries .

An area I found very disconcerting was how many former senior military officials, as well as members of Congress, demonstrated how little they knew about the working of the American intelligence system. Near unanimously their first impulse was to shoot first and ask questions later. Fortunately, there were a few who understood the value in tracking and observing the device and the cooler heads prevailed.

Another gift to China was the U.S. Northern Command commander, Gen. Glen VanHerck, admission that, “The American military had a ‘domain awareness gap’ that allowed at least three other suspected Chinese spy balloons to transit the continental United States undetected under the Trump administration.”

It appears there are no lower limits to which GOP members won’t stoop to scare the public and destroy trust and confidence in our system of governance. Their gifts to China were substantial. Probably the most important lesson was that given a minor provocation, American Republican leadership would be willing to imploded the government for their own political gain. Given the actions of the GOP and rightwing associates, can anybody question the reason China might think the U.S. is in decline? Their responses were clearly a bonanza for Chinese intelligence.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/8/2151848/--Republicans-Hand-China-an-Intelligence-Coup

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