There is a tendency, well-documented by historians and military experts, of defending and preparing for the next enemy of the United States with the tools and techniques which worked well in the prior war.
NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (I know the acronym doesn't match...take it up with the Pentagon), was founded by the U.S. and Canada in 1958, relatively early in the Cold War, to both monitor U.S. airspace and particularly to identify fast-moving projectiles or aircraft headings towards the U.S. land mass (including Alaska and Hawaii). Identifying, intercepting and deflecting in early outer-atmosphere the detonation of any intercontinental ballistic missile, or meeting unidentified or hostile enemy aircraft flying in formation (like Pearl Harbor) before reaching U.S. landfall were top mission priorities.
NORAD has served us well, but its radar, sonar and multiple early detection technologies were not really ever intended to detect large, slow moving craft, particularly at lower altitudes. Balloons, blimps, and Zeppelins were long ago reduced in terms of threat analysis after the explosion of the Hindenburg, though the Germans continued use of a variety of airships for reconnaissance and submarine surveillance throughout World War II.
You may remember our U-2 Spy Planes, first commissioned by the United States Air Force for high altitude reconnaissance in 1957. Lockheed has built 104 U-2’s since, many of which still remain in service. One of these single engine jets was shot down over Russia on May 1, 1960, causing an international incident, and resulting in the U.S.S.R. imprisonment of pilot Francis Gary Powers. Powers was released in 1962, in exchange for a Russian spy in U.S. custody, he returned stateside and eventually became a pilot for Los Angeles news station and its news chopper. Powers was killed flying that craft in 1977.
Still later, during the first Persian Gulf War, in 1990, a coalition of nations would challenge Iraq, after its invasion of neighboring sovereign nation Kuwait. The first night's bombing of Baghdad by U.S. and allied forces was well documented and covered live by CNN and other news outlets. Departing Baghdad days later to maintain their safety, CNN anchor Bernard Shaw, and then war correspondent John Holliman, left Baghdad in the dark of night for a long dessert drive on the only road available, connecting Baghdad to Damascus, Syria. When the caravan arrived safely in Syria, they received a secure phone call from CNN President Tom Johnson, inquiring about their condition and safety, and then asking for a fax number.
The caravan had made at least one pit stop along the 90+ mile route to Damascus, and while doing his business facing a small shrub roadside, in the pitch black of night, Johnson faxed a U.S. military satellite photo of the top of Holliman's bald head, clearly visible along with the motorcade in the complete dark of a desert night in Syria.
True, a Chinese launched balloon, for whatever purpose, carrying a payload we now understand to be as large as three buses, should NOT have been flying through U.S. airspace without clearance. But other than surveillance and monitoring multiple telecomm and broadcast frequencies or potentially looking into buildings at night with infrared technology, that burst balloon and the three other lesser unidentified flying objects subsequently taken down recently don’t terribly concern me.
Our next war will begin more like our 1990 attacks on Iraq. Take out their telecommunications infrastructure, and knock out power and water supplies as the Russians continue to currently focus their efforts in Ukraine. And though the potential of nuclear warfare still looms large as a potential world ender, most of our enemies still seem to prefer global domination over extinction of our species, I am a bit more concerned about all the data being gobbled, assembled and prepared for use against us by foreign-owned/controlled media apps like TikTok.
And if/when otherworldly aliens decide on an invasion or have already landed on our planet, I think they will make their presence a bit more known and threatening than balloons gliding through mid-atmosphere, when they likely would have arrived here at something closer to the speed of light. It remains to me the height of U.S. hubris to believe that we are the only planet in the universe capable of hosting intelligent life.
In the words of Rod Serling, ‘Imagine if you will…’a U.S. without wifi and mobile phone networks in operation for a period of a month or more from the perspective of our digital first Generation Z and Millenial population. Now THAT scares me.
