WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Chinese balloon recently shot down by the U.S. was definitely for intelligence gain, but there may be more to it.
CBS News Military Analyst Jeff McCausland told WKOK’s On The Mark there may be a problem with Chinese leadership, “It seems to me they were very desired of Mr. (US Secretary of State Antony) Blinken making this trip to Beijing to see if we can at least find some bottom in the decent of U.S.-Chinese relations. So why do this now for what seemed to be an intelligence gain, unless this was one of those things where, ‘Hey, it was on the schedule.’”
McCausland says it was the right move to wait to shoot the balloon down until it was over water not only to keep Americans safe – it’s also harder to shoot down than you think, “Keep in mind that a F-22 has a max altitude of about 58,000 feet. The balloon was at 65-70,000 feet. Then you have a problem if the missile malfunctions or misses, and then finally, the probability of us recovering materials intact is greater over water than greater over the ground.”
McCausland says it also seemed the U.S. military took efforts to make sure nothing was picked up by the balloon once it was located, “The Pentagon has suggested, and I’ll take them at their word because I know they have the capability, that as soon as it was identified passing over Montana, they made every effort to ensure that it couldn’t effectively pick up or transmit intelligence. That tells me they used either microwave, cyber lasers, electronic warfare to blind the cameras and prevent it from transmitting down.”
You can hear more analysis from McCausland on the WKOK.com Podcast Page or wherever you listen to podcasts.
