The Cost of Chaos: The Journey of Tom Bergen through the Cold War with the Flying Spy Balloons over the Soviet Union
Peter Bergen is a professor at Arizona State University and is the national security analyst for CNN. Bergen is the author of “The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World.” The views he gives are of his own. CNN has more opinion on it.
And it reminded me that when my father, Tom Bergen, was a lieutenant in the US Air Force in the mid-1950s, he worked on a program to help send balloons into Soviet airspace.
In 1954. he was assigned to the Headquarters Air Material Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He worked on the project in which balloons carried cameras over the Soviet Union. Those spy balloons were launched from Turkey.
The work was a secret when my dad was working for it, but the program was declassified over seven decades ago.
Why have no known three other balloons from China had entered the U.S. air space during the Trump administration? Answers from the intelligence community
Now comes the news that three other balloons from China were in American air space during the Trump administration but did not become widely known then.
The United States and its competitors have spy satellites which allow them to take photos. They can do a very good video. They can take thermal imagery that show people moving around at night. When the skies are clear, they can spy on pretty much anything, with a resolution of centimeters.
Satellite imagery is becoming so cheap you can even buy your own close-up images of a Russian battle group. Just ask Maxar Technologies; they have built up a rather profitable business on this model, which was just acquired two months ago for $6 billion by a private equity firm.
The revelation that the intelligence community only within the last year developed a reliable way to track China’s balloon fleet – which officials now say has flown dozens of missions worldwide – helps explain why Trump administration officials have stridently claimed to have had no knowledge of the three alleged flights over US territory during the former president’s time in office.
It may help explain why the report was published last month by the US Office of Director of National Intelligence.
The Pentagon adjusted the way it uses radar to look for similar activities after the balloon entered the U.S. airspace.
The F-35 case is not base by China: High-altitude surveillance balloons around the globe are not. China has done much worse than it should have done
But China has arguably done much worse. The US has accused it of benefiting from the work of the hackers who stole design data of the F-35 fighter aircraft to build a new generation of fighters for China, and of taking away personal information from more than 20 million Americans who were current or former members of the US government. The F-35 theft report was called base by China, who denied responsibility for OPM hacking.
US officials also detailed what they’ve discovered about the broader spying operation they say the Chinese government has undertaken using a fleet of high-altitude surveillance balloons across the globe.
One official familiar with the intelligence tells me that roughly half a dozen of those flights have been within US airspace.
A person familiar with the intel said that not all of the balloons are the same model as the one shot down off the coast of South Carolina. Rather, there are multiple “variations,” these people said.
The link to the broader surveillance program, which was uncovered before the latest balloon was spotted last week, was first reported by the Washington Post.
Senior FBI officials told reporters that the FBI lab in Virginia has started evaluating the pieces of the balloon that were recovered.
It is not clear what intelligence the US has gathered that has led officials to believe that the balloon might have accidentally been in the air. The US intelligence community is also closely scrutinizing which elements of the Chinese government ordered and approved the balloon’s mission.
China offered a rare expression of regret over the crash of the weather balloon and maintained that the vessel was thrown off course.
The Chinese explanation isn’t credible according to multiple defense officials and sources briefed on the intelligence.
The elite team is made up of agents, analysts, engineers, and scientists, who are all tasked with analyzing those of the US adversaries.
OTD personnel, for example, construct surveillance devices used by FBI and intelligence community personnel targeting national security threats — but they also are responsible for managing court-authorized data collection and work to defeat efforts by foreign intelligence agencies to penetrate the US.
There are a number of reasons why the House Intelligence Committee wouldn’t do that. We want to collect off it, and you want to know what it is doing.
A defense official said the US has procedures – akin to a kind of digital blackout – to protect sensitive locations from overhead surveillance, typically used for satellite overflight.
On Capitol Hill, administration officials from the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence community briefed lawmakers on the balloon before it was shot down.
An official says the Chinese balloon was capable of monitoring US communications.
The order to send the balloon was not communicated to the Chinese President, sources said.
Rep. Mike Quigley (R-New Jersey) – The Pentagon’s response to the “Japan Airlines Airborne Attack”
One official stated that only evidence from the surface of the ocean was delivered to FBI analysts so far. The official said analysts have not yet seen the “payload,” which is where you would expect to see the “lion’s share” of electronics.
The commander of US Northern Command said on Monday that they didn’t consider it to have a significant collection hazard.
The officials told lawmakers that the US has assessed that little new intelligence was gleaned by the Chinese balloon operation because the Chinese appeared to stop transmitting information once the US learned of the balloon, in addition to US measures to protect sensitive intelligence from China’s spying operations, according to the sources.
The balloon’s appearance earlier this month also prompted the U.S. to shoot down other “unidentified objects” in the sky, and sparked a fresh wave of criticism in Washington, with Republicans accusing President Joe Biden of not acting quickly enough or providing enough transparency.
The waters of Alaskan airspace are not very warm and may make it less likely that the balloon can be recovered.
The sources said the House briefing Thursday morning was tense, with several Republicans railing against the administration, including one that said the president looked weak by their actions.
The Pentagon was telling us that they had been able to mitigate in real time, and that was correct, says Rep. Mike Quigley, an Illinois Democrat.
The military and intelligence agencies acted skillfully, and I think the administration did the same. At the same time, their capabilities are extraordinarily impressive. Was everything done correctly? I can’t imagine that would be the case of almost anything we do. But I came away more confident,” Romney said Thursday.
Sens. Tester Explains Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing about the Discovery of a Large-Scale China-Embedded Balloon
Democratic senator Jon Tester told the officials at the meeting he did not know how they could say the Chinese had no military intentions, at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday.
You need to explain to me why this baby was not taken out long before. I tell you that this is not the last time. The chairman of the Senate appropriations defense subcommittee asked, “What happens next?” after seeing a long incursion.
“We don’t understand because quite frankly, we have been briefed in his committee over and over and over again, about the risks that China poses, both economically and militarily,” he said. “China tends to push the envelope all the time until a line is set down.”“
Pentagon officials said at the hearing that the Defense Department was not concerned about the balloon gathering intelligence over Alaska as it was not near sensitive sites.
Crews using salvage equipment successfully have retrieved important elements of the Chinese balloon that was shot down off the South Carolina coast 10 days ago, the U.S. military says.
The officials said that it was not known where the parts for the balloon were manufactured, whether they were made in America or not. Analysts haven’t looked at the bulk of the balloon’s equipment yet, so they aren’t sure what the device is capable of.
Of the small portion of analysts’ work that they’ve done, there is not a single thing that would pose a danger to the American public.
There was English writing on parts of the balloon that were found, one of the sources familiar with the congressional briefings said, though they were not high-tech components. The source declined to provide detail on what specific parts of the balloon contained English writing.
Beijing’s response to the U.S. “Flew Spy Balloons” and the Pentagon’s investigation of the alleged spy balloon
China reacted angrily to the shootdown, refused a call from the secretary of defense, and canceled a high-stakes trip to Beijing after President Biden suggested bilateral relations with them had not been affected. The balloon would likely inflame tensions as a result of new sanctions.
China countered U.S. accusations with its own claims, alleging that the U.S. “flew spy balloons into Chinese airspace more than 10 times since January 2022 without Beijing’s permission,” as NPR’s Emily Feng reported.
As U.S. Navy crews continue to fish parts of the alleged Chinese spy balloon out of the Atlantic, a senior State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave reporters an update on Thursday on some of what has been learned so far.
The main electronics payload, however, has not been recovered yet, one of the FBI officials said, adding that it was “very early” to assess what the intent was and how the device was operating.
Wang says the US is the world’s largest surveillance empire. The National Security Council denies the allegations.
The Pentagon press secretary asked whether the Chinese government was controlling the movement of the balloon or if it was floating with air streams. Gen. Pat Ryder declined to comment in detail.
And the government is investing in improvements, too. In the last year,China launched a project to research materials that can be used to make balloons that float higher.
Senior Trump administration officials including former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, as well as ex- national security adviser John Bolton have all said they were not notified that Chinese balloons entered US airspace under the last administration.
Unidentified Aerial Objects in the U.S. after the February Fourth Fly-by of a High-Altitude Balloon over Latin America
The crews were able to recover a lot of debris at the site, including all of the priority sensor and electronics pieces.
The crane that was used to bring up a large portion of the balloon should be used more often since it is estimated to be up to 200 feet tall.
“A jet airliner type of size, or possibly a regional jet,” weighing more than 2,000 pounds, is what the Gen. Glen VanHerck has categorized the payload’s size as.
On February 4th, the U.S. blew the balloon out of the sky in objection to that explanation.
Analysts told the Biden administration not to let the craft go back to China because it may have too much data and the U.S. should be able to recover it.
News of the intrusive Chinese balloon touched off alerts in the U.S. and beyond. When the Pentagon said last week that a similar high-altitude balloon had been identified over Latin America, China responded by saying it was another research balloon that was badly off-course, deeming it “an unexpected, isolated incident caused by force majeure,” meaning events beyond the country’s control.
The objects have been described as smaller than the spy balloon that started the uproar. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters on Monday that there were ongoing recovery operations for those objects, but no debris had yet been recovered.
As for how the U.S. will handle cases of unidentified aerial objects objects in the future, Kirby said on Tuesday that the National Security Council likely will present new guidance by the end of the week.
Questions about the recent shoot down of a balloon and other objects spurred a classified intelligence review for the Senate Tuesday morning. The closed hearing is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. at the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Chinese-US relations in the wake of a recent high-altitude balloon visit to Latin America and its possible meeting with China at the Munich Security Conference
In recent years a trade war and other issues have strained the relationship between the U.S. and China.
China admits that another high-altitude balloon spotted over Latin America is its, and that it is also a weather research balloon.
The White House separately reassured Americans that there was no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity.
Emily reported from Taiwan. Lexie was in Washington, D.C. Vincent Ni and Padmananda Rama contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.
The path the balloon took was decided by strong winds and may have been a result of Beijing’s external maneuvers, but US officials are not sure.
Blinken and Wang will both attend the Munich Security Conference this weekend. US officials have not completely ruled out the chance of a meeting between the two.
The Army Balloon Corps: What Happened When U.S. Colonies Surveil the Real Enemy Is The W
He said that he wasn’t going to go into any specific intelligence. “Again, we know this is a Chinese balloon and that it has the ability to maneuver, but I’ll just leave it at that.”
Schwartz says that it was a disaster. And once again, the wind was to blame: “You had no idea where the balloons were going, so it was just hit or miss as to what you would see.”
Generals have been at risk, diplomatic relations have been strained, and millions of dollars of equipment have been ruined. And despite it all, nations just don’t seem to be able to let go of their balloons.
The love affair with balloons started long before airplanes took flight. The Battle of Fleurus took place in the 18th century and saw the French use balloons against the Austrians. During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln created the U.S. Army Balloon Corps to surveil the enemy.
Tom D. Crouch, an associate professor of art at the National Air and Space Museum, said perspective matters when fighting a war. He says it’s a good way to be able to see as much as you can behind enemy lines.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/17/1157589985/militaries-have-sought-to-use-spy-balloons-for-centuries-the-real-enemy-is-the-w
The Story of a High-Altitude Balloon Goes Beyond the Union Lines: The Case of the Virginia Siege of April 11, 1956
But for as long as there have been balloons, the wind has had something to say about where they fly. A balloon carrying a Union general went astray during the siege of Virginia on April 11, 1862. Marksmen took a few potshots at the bobbing general as he floated over the enemy, Crouch says. “Fortunately, the winds shifted, and they were blown back over the Union lines.”
New, lightweight materials, such as mylar, allowed researchers to build balloons that could travel high into the stratosphere, near the edge of space. That technology, together with electronics and remote cameras meant that uncrewed balloons could potentially drift across enemy territory, providing views that, at the time, were unavailable any other way.
“You would take special cameras, attach them to high-altitude balloons, set them adrift in Western Europe and let them drift over the Soviet Union,” says Stephen Schwartz, a non-resident senior fellow at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Schwartz says the goal was to fly over the Soviet empire and collect intelligence on nuclear weapons. It was terrifying that the Soviet Union was going to unleash a surprise attack and we had no idea what they were capable of.
The culmination of these efforts was a top-secret program called Project Genetrix. Starting in January of 1956, the U.S. government began releasing dozens of high-altitude balloons from airbases in Germany and Turkey.
In addition to being haphazard, the Genetrix balloons weren’t very stealthy either, says Tom Crouch. U.S. intelligence “hoped that they could get by without the Soviets noticing,” he says. “That didn’t happen.”
The Air Force tried to solve the problems with more balloons. They hoped that a significant number would get through when they launched them.
The selfie, taken by the pilot of the U-2, shows the shadow of the aircraft on the balloon and a clear image of the balloon’s payload as it crossed across the continental United States. CNN first reported the existence of the selfie.
The balloon was shot down by the US military off the coast of South Carolina after crossing the country, after being spotted by the US on January 28.
Once it was over US territory, officials have argued that the benefits of gathering additional intelligence on the balloon far outweighed the risk of shooting it down over land.
Seeking for Landmarks in the Photo of the U-2 Supremum Glider: Bellflower, the Mississippi River, and the Balloon
The U-2 is a high altitude and single seat aircraft that resembles a glider, according to the Air Force. pilots must wear pressure suits similar to those worn by astronauts because the planes are frequently flown at altitudes over 70,000 feet.
It’s actually not an impossible task, and I laid my process in a Twitter thread earlier today (Another Twitter user reached the same conclusion several hours earlier).
Next, check for landmarks in the photo. Far off on the horizon there’s a river which is clearly visible, along with some high altitude clouds. A review of publicly available satellite data shows a front of clouds along the Mississippi River that day.
It is a good candidate for the Mississippi River, but where is it? It is possible to improve the photo and look for different landmarks. One obvious one, in the center of the image, is a Y-shaped channel leading to the river. The channel appears next to a dam or bridge.
Once you have two points, use Google Earth or other mapping software to draw a line through them. It is possible to find the town of Bellflower and the balloon with the plane in the picture after following it. It’s all a little rough, but good enough.
From looking at the photo, we can see that there are other tidbits. The U-2 spy plane is located at a service altitude of around 70,000 feet. The balloon is flying in the sky and the Pentagon claims it could go as high as 60,000 feet.
The shadow of a spy plane can be used to get a better idea of the balloon’s size according to Chis combs, an aerodynamics professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.