Surveillance balloon

Subject : International Relations

Section : Msc

Concept :

The United States shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon that had floated over American airspace for several days, triggering the latest diplomatic crisis amid already worsening relations between the world’s two biggest powers.

Purpose of Sending the Balloon:

China has for decades complained about US surveillance by ships and spy planes near its own territory, leading to occasional confrontations over the years. According to China, the balloon was for research but got off track.

The spy balloon:

Around a decade-and-a-half after the first ever hot air balloon took flight with humans, balloons were already being used for military purposes.
During the French Revolutionary Wars in the late 18th century, balloons were used to provide a bird’s eye view of the battlefield, with there being documented evidence of their use in the Battle of Fleurus in 1794.
Since then, balloons have been in use in all kinds of conflict, from the American Civil War to World War I.
For well over a century, before aircraft technology really took off during the Great War, balloons were the primary mode of big-picture reconnaissance, providing perspective on enemy positions and movements simply impossible to obtain from the ground.
During World War II, as technologies evolved and balloons could be pushed to higher altitudes, their use evolved as well.
For instance, the Japanese military tried to loft incendiary bombs into US territory using balloons designed to float in jet stream air currents.
After the war, the US military started exploring the use of high-altitude spy balloons, which led to a large-scale series of missions called Project Genet.
The project flew photographic balloons over Soviet bloc territory in the 1950s – a time before the sheer ubiquitousness of surveillance satellites we see today.
While their use has declined with the rise of unmanned drones and satellites, many countries still employ spy balloons.

How relevant are high-altitude balloons today?

While satellites and improved aeroplane and drone technologies have reduced the salience of high-altitude balloons in the military, they still occupy an important niche.
Unlike satellites which can cost millions of dollars to create, and require sophisticated technology to launch, high-altitude balloons are cheap and easy to launch and control.
While balloons cannot directly be steered, they can be roughly guided to a target area by changing altitudes to catch different wind currents
Moreover, unlike satellites which are at much higher altitudes and moving at incredible speeds, spy balloons have the advantage of being able to hover around at lower heights, thus providing better quality images as well as more time to gather intelligence in a particular area.