Chinese Spy Balloon Crisis Revealed

Unreported Phone Call Triggered Eight-Day Response to Aerial Threat

An unreported phone call on Jan. 27 between Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), and Gen. Mark Milley, the top U.S. general at the time, triggered an eight-day crisis as the Biden administration scrambled to respond to a Chinese spy balloon.
The balloon, the size of three school buses and equipped with a massive surveillance payload but no offensive capabilities, had transited across the Indo-Pacific and crossed into U.S. airspace over Alaska.
The Biden administration initially hoped to keep the balloon’s existence a secret from Congress and the public, but a resident in Montana spotted the balloon, and NBC News informed the administration it planned to report that a Chinese spy balloon was crossing over the U.S. on Feb. 1.
The balloon stopped transmitting signals back to China after news of its transit broke, and U.S. officials believe China planned to self-destruct the balloon rather than bringing it back home to retrieve photos and other kinds of data stored on board.
Nearly one year later, President Joe Biden’s promise to establish norms of behavior in the skies have not been realized, and VanHerck worries the U.S. still lacks the radar ability to monitor long-range aerial threats before they reach the U.S. homeland.