The Balloon Test?

A hypothesis.

The ladder of escalation is an armchair strategist’s concoction. It leads to the frightening final rung: spasm/insensate war — global devastation from an all-out, intercontinental exchange of nuclear weapons.

A more realistic view is that the first nuclear shot, if devastating enough but not too devastating, would be the final nuclear shot. The polity that fires the first shot would attain whatever it sought because the polity that receives the first shot wouldn’t want to retaliate and thereby invite further devastation upon its territory and people.

In the present environment, the polity that fires the first shot might be Russia (to stop U.S.-NATO intervention in its war on Ukraine) or China (to prevent U.S. intervention in its seizure of Taiwan and the South China Sea).

Where do the balloons come in? Suppose they are tests by China of NORAD, the U.S.-Canada early-warning and air-defense system that dates back to the 1950s. Devised originally to deter and defend against Soviet strikes, it serves the same purpose today against a somewhat larger array of potential attackers (Russia, China, North Korea, and eventually Iran).

It’s true that there have been incursions before the recent “spy balloon” incident and its successors. But given the parlous state of U.S.-China relations, these recent incursions could be ominous (in the second meaning of the word).

In addition to Biden’s strange reluctance to shoot down the balloon that spent days over the U.S. (his usual lies to the contrary notwithstanding), there’s his history of military fecklessness: his opposition to the raid that took out bin Laden and his disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The spate of shootdowns after the big-balloon fiasco does nothing (in a potential enemy’s view) to rescue Biden’s reputation. The recent shootdowns would be rightly viewed as p.r. stunts, executed in a vain effort to make Biden look tough.

Even if I’m right about the purpose for the balloon incursions, I’m not suggesting that China is about to throw a missile at the U.S. or a place that the U.S. values. China’s leaders, unlike the West’s, can play the “long game”. What’s done today need not bear fruit for years or decades.

In the meantime, the Chinese have American “leaders” scratching their heads and bickering about what China is up to. On the evidence to date, China’s leaders can proceed with impunity when it’s time to go nuclear. The election of 2024 could well change that view, which suggests that China is likely to act sooner rather than later.

Just as I was finishing this post, I discovered a piec that reinforces my view of the game that China is playing: James Holmes, “That Downed Chinese Balloon Wasn’t Exactly For Spying. It Was A ‘Trial’ Balloon”, 1945, February 4, 2023. (Hat tip to Bill Vallicella.)