China's 'Aggressive' Balloon Reconnaissance Poses No Threat on the Ground

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Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash

The US tracked what officials described as a Chinese reconnaissance balloon over the continental states this week in what would be an aggressive act of intelligence gathering over sensitive American national security sites, including Montana, where the US maintains an arsenal of 150 nuclear-armed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The balloon “does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground at this time,” said the North American Aerospace Defense Command, a combined US and Canadian organization. “The balloon is currently traveling at altitude well above commercial air traffic.” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, and other senior military leaders recommended to President Biden that the military not “take kinetic acti…