Tag: United States Defense and Military Forces

How Questions Over a Spy Balloon and U.F.O.s Fed a Crisis Between the U.S. and China

Chin@Strategy

Other murky actions have challenged U.S. analysts trying to read Chinese intentions. On Jan. 28, when the balloon approached the Aleutian Islands and American airspace over Alaska in its off-course trajectory, the balloon’s self-destruct function did not activate, U.S. officials said. Chinese operators may not have wanted to destroy the balloon; it is also possible that they attempted to trigger the self-destruct mechanism and it failed. The Chinese Spy Balloon Showdown The discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon floating over the United States has added to the rising tensions between…

U.S.-China Tensions Rise Over Spy Programs Amid UFO Investigations

Chin@Strategy

U.S. agencies are still investigating the origins of the three mysterious objects that U.S. fighter jets shot down between Friday and Sunday on the orders of Mr. Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. Debris recovery efforts are underway at the sites in Alaska, the Yukon Territory in Canada and the Canadian side of Lake Huron, Mr. Kirby said. What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information?…

After Shooting Down Flying Objects, U.S. and Canada Have More Theories Than Answers

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — If the truth is out there, it certainly is not apparent yet. Pentagon and intelligence officials are trying to make sense of three unidentified flying objects over Alaska, Canada and Michigan that U.S. fighter jets shot down with missiles on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The latest turn in the aerial show taking place in the skies above North America comes after a helter-skelter weekend involving what at times seemed like an invasion of unidentified flying objects. The latest object had first been spotted on Saturday over Montana, initially sparking debate…

U.S. Jet Shoots Down Another Unidentified Object Over Canada

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — An American fighter jet, acting on the orders of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, shot down another unidentified flying object on Saturday, Canadian and American officials said, in the latest twist of the ongoing drama playing out over the skies of North America. “I ordered the take down of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace,” Mr. Trudeau said in a statement he posted on Twitter. He said an American F-22 with the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which is operated jointly by the United States and Canada,…

What Was the Chinese Spy Balloon Trying to Collect?

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government is combing over a variety of intelligence — debris, reconnaissance plane photos and old observations — to learn what the Chinese spy balloon was after as it made its way across the United States in early February, before being shot down by a Sidewinder missile fired by a stealth fighter jet last weekend. The Chinese spy balloon was equipped with an antenna meant to pinpoint the locations of communications devices and was capable of intercepting calls made on those devices, according to declassified intelligence released…

Chinese Balloon Had Tools to Collect Communications Signals, U.S. Says

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — The Chinese spy balloon shot down by the U.S. military over the Atlantic Ocean was capable of collecting communications signals and was part of a fleet of surveillance balloons directed by the Chinese military that had flown over more than 40 countries across five continents, the State Department said Thursday. The United States used high resolution imagery from U-2 flybys to determine the balloon’s capabilities, the department said in a written announcement, adding that the balloon’s equipment “was clearly for intelligence surveillance and inconsistent with the equipment onboard…

After Spy Balloon Clash, U.S.-China Tensions Loom Over Biden’s Speech

Chin@Strategy

While Russia’s war in Ukraine presents a more urgent day-to-day foreign policy issue for President Biden and his aides, they have said repeatedly that China is the greatest long-term challenger to American power — even as the two countries maintain robust trade ties. The spy balloon episode that unfolded in the skies above the United States last week and a resulting surge in diplomatic tensions have underscored that. Many of the Democratic and Republican lawmakers who will be in the chamber when Mr. Biden delivers his State of the Union…

After Spy Balloon Incident, China Rejects Pentagon’s Request to Speak

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said on Tuesday that China had rejected a request from Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III to speak with his Chinese counterpart on Saturday soon after an American fighter jet shot down a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina. As the debris was settling into the Atlantic and Navy divers were beginning the arduous task of trying to recover the balloon’s sensors and other surveillance equipment, the Pentagon reached out to China to clear the air. “We believe in the importance of maintaining…

Trump-Era Chinese Spy Balloon Incursions Initially Went Undetected

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — The top military commander overseeing North American airspace said Monday that some previous incursions by Chinese spy balloons during the Trump administration were not detected in real time, and the Pentagon learned of them only later. “I will tell you that we did not detect those threats, and that’s a domain awareness gap,” said Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, the commander of the Pentagon’s Northern Command. One explanation, multiple U.S. officials said, is that some previous incursions were initially classified as “unidentified aerial phenomena,” Pentagon speak for U.F.O.s. As the…

Previous Chinese Balloon Incursions Initially Went Undetected

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — The top military commander overseeing North American airspace said Monday that some previous incursions by Chinese spy balloons during the Trump administration were not detected in real time, and the Pentagon learned of them only later. “I will tell you that we did not detect those threats, and that’s a domain awareness gap,” said Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, the commander of the Pentagon’s Northern Command. One explanation, multiple U.S. officials said, is that some previous incursions were initially classified as “unidentified aerial phenomena,” Pentagon speak for U.F.O.s. As the…