The United States was right to take down the Chinese spy balloon that had ventured into American airspace. It is unacceptable for China to intrude on our sovereignty and we must be vigilant in protecting our borders.
The Chinese surveillance balloon was detected off the coast of South Carolina after it had been spotted over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. The 200-foot tall balloon weighed 2,000 pounds and had a payload roughly the size of a jet airliner. It created a debris field in shallow waters that is about 1,500 meters by 1,500 meters.
To protect national security, the US military launched an F-22 fighter jet which successfully shot down the Chinese spy balloon using a Sidewinder missile. This showed that we are not afraid to defend our nation from foreign adversaries at any cost.
The Pentagon requested a phone call between Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart but China declined this request. This further illustrates their disrespect for international law and their disregard for American interests abroad.
China has since taken an aggressive stance towards the incident by claiming that “the U.S should have properly handled such incidents calmly and professionally not involving the use of force.” This is completely unreasonable considering they were trespassing in America’s airspace without permission or justification in doing so.
U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels are currently collecting and categorizing debris from the destroyed surveillance balloon before shipping it off to an FBI processing lab in Quantico, Virginia where it will be further analyzed for intelligence purposes.
Foreign governments cannot violate our nation’s laws without consequences – no matter how powerful those countries may seem or what type of relationship we share with them politically or economically speaking. Our government must remain steadfast when dealing with threats from other nations if we want to keep our citizens safe from harm both domestically and abroad.
