On Chinese Balloons--And The New FBI

For the technical/legal details regarding the Chinese spy balloon—the two go hand in hand—I can’t recommend highly enough Larry Johnson’s

STURM UND DRANG AND CHINESE BALLOONS

Here’s how he begins:

U.S military commands NORAD and NORTHCOM have been soiling themselves during the last 48 hours because a Chinese spy balloon is flying over the United States mainland. The U.S. military initially recommended a shoot down and Joe Biden gave the greenlight. But cooler heads prevailed, ...

The war party in the United States is apoplectic. The media is reporting that the military ignored Biden’s order. …

This is madness. The countries with military satellites circling the globe do not have a formal agreement under international law defining where earth’s atmosphere ends and space begins. (More about that in a bit.)

...

Currently there is a de facto assumption by most nations that the line dividing earth atmosphere from space is 60 miles above the earth:

The basic idea is that countries with military related satellites—which also includes intelligence gathering—have agreed not to interfere with satellites in “outer space”. At least not during peace times. The agreement isn’t written in stone, and there is nothing in international law defining “where earth’s atmosphere ends and space begins.” The 60 mile limit is a “de facto assumption”, not a legal definition, and rests on common sense ideas, but includes some grey areas, which Larry explains.

The Chinese balloon is traversing the US at an altitude of 55 miles.

What’s going on here? I think Larry is absolutely right: The Chinese, having had to put up with continual US political, military, and intel gathering provocations for years are now yanking our chain:

The heart of the issue is that the Chinese balloon does not pose a greater security threat to the United States than a Chinese military satellite. What has so many arm chair generals and pundits pissed off is that the Chinese are ridiculing our impotence. Nancy Pelosi goes to Taiwan as a deliberate insult to China and the Chinese now send us a balloon and daring us to shoot it down. That is a bait the U.S. should not take.

There is some further context. Speaker Kev is due to participate in another calculated insult to China’s views on its sovereignty in the near future, by visiting Taiwan. And, yes, a US general very recently announced to the world that the US will soon be at war with China—within about two years. That’s the American Republic these days. Generals call the shots, through leaks of their memos. Americans have grown accustomed to these sorts of things—Taiwan, like Ukraine—is far away and the US military operates mostly in distant lands. When it’s not occupying the Imperial City on the Potomac against “insurgent” Americans. In any event, in such circumstances it’s reasonable that the Chinese should wish to keep an eye on our nuclear missile facilities. At least that’s a reasonable argument for what they’re doing. And there’s likely more to this.

China’s balloon is, at least arguably, operating in accordance with international law. That’s China’s position, and they’re sticking to it. Of course, China is also issuing a calculated challenge to the US claim that it has replaced international law with a Rules-Based Order, according to which Might Makes Right—when the might is American Might. Well, the rest of the world can be forgiven for perhaps seeing our Rules-Based Order in those terms, given that the US goes around blowing up critical energy infrastructure without any say-so from the nations concerned.

This Chinese challenge has placed the US in a somewhat tricky position. The sensible thing to do, for peace loving nations, would be to come up with a legal definition of “outer space” to govern the operation of militaries in space. The US has opposed such definitions, which would hamper the operation of its Rules-Based Order:

I think the Chinese are testing the definition of what constitutes acceptable overhead surveillance and may be trying to create a predicate for destroying our satellites if we go after their balloons. The United States has long resisted any legal definition of outer space to avoid restrictions on high-altitude military activities. Advances on the technological front involving satellites and other aerial collection systems has created a very murky area that is not defined by law or treaty when it comes to intelligence collection.

There may be something else at play here.

If there’s one thing that informed Americans have learned over the last 6 years or so, it’s that the line between “private companies” and the Corporate American National Security State—formerly known as the United States of America, as further defined in the former US Constitution—is unclear at best. In point of fact, for most intents and purposes it appears that the CANSS requisitions the services of private companies on a routine basis. Social Media, Big Data, Big Pharma, Big Satellite Surveillance—you name it. And the CANSS is, through these commerical enterprises, very much an integral part of the war in Ukraine, providing intel, targeting information, and even guidance on a real time basis.

I’d be willing to entertain, as a theory, that Russia and China have colluded in the spy balloon flight. If the US had taken the bait and shot the balloon down, Russia might possibly have taken that as a green light for some takedowns of its own over Russia and over Ukraine. At least this is a theory worth considering.

All of this illustrates, one more time, how dangerous is the concept of a Rules-Based Order when the limits of that Order are essentially defined by American military might. That can easily backfire in the face of counter balancing might. Perhaps Putin has a point in arguing for the continuing central importance of International Law in world affairs.

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Now, very briefly, I want to recommend a book review by Ken Masugi. It’s too big a topic to go into here, although we’ve discussed aspects of this many times:

A review of The Fall of the FBI: How a Once Great Agency Became a Threat to Democracy,
by Thomas Baker (Bombardier Books, 362 pages, $30)

The FBI as Intelligence Unit for the Administrative State

Today, the heroes are few and outnumbered as the FBI has become the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party, which is the party of government.

Here’s another related article:

Planned New FBI HQ Is Twice the Size of the Pentagon

It seems like a metaphor for the Corporate American National Security State.