19 thoughts on “The Deep State”

  1. Why did Biden make the decision only last Wednesday? Why not earlier when it was clear it was going to traverse our airspace over the Pacific west of Alaska? Was he not told, or did he dawdle? If the former: Clean… House… Even if it means bringing back retirees. Esp. if it means promoting formerly mid-rank retirees to senior positions. Four stars should know that letting an unannounced, unmanned aircraft drift over our airspace from any foreign country, ally or not, is a firing offense. Maybe not stop there: Northern Command I’m looking at you.

    If the latter, there is an election in 2024, same principle.

    a) We thank you for you service, please have your letter of resignation on the president’s desk by 0800 tomorrow.

    b) We thank you for your service. Please assist the President-Elect and assist the new administration assume office, rather than pursuit of perjury traps.

  2. What does the Deep State have to do with the point of the essay? Does the author think that the Deep State would have shot down the balloon and caught the others?

    The Deep State isn’t a monolith. The Deep State are groups of Democrats, and people who work for them, in key positions that allow them to manipulate the government for the benefit of Democrats. The Deep State isn’t going to make Biden look bad, they are there to protect him.

    The size and complexity of the government is what allows these Deep State groups to exist. The Deep State isnt all of the government workforce but rather small groups.

    The other things he goes into aren’t just random decay and incompetence. They are the symptoms of Democrats populating government, which is only a problem because of their current animating ideology of Progressive Marxism.

    1. The deep state is the uni-party. The republicans are as much as part of the deep state as the dems. They are runing the good cop, bad cop routine on you. Don’t keep falling for it.

      1. Which covert government action has been in the service of the Republican party?

        I have a lot of problems with the Republican establishment but they are not the Deep State.

  3. I don’t think the balloon was the target. The response was the target. What the public doesn’t know is what China had watching the response. Using their previous actions against our navy as a guide, there would be both space based and Earth based assets surveilling The response.

    How are we doing tracking down the Chinese agents in the USA that were taking part?

  5. I disagree with assuming hostile until proven otherwise. That is not even a rule of engagement in war zones without some other support intelligence providing more than an assumption of hostility. Outside of the threat and annoyance to air traffic, what was the real threat here? The nuclear sites in Montana? Rand, you understand rockets, do you think those missiles in Montana are a threat to China? Would the US fire those missiles over Russia to hit China?

    I’m good with making fun of Biden. And the trial balloon that supposedly China did this under Trump was immediately shot down by Trump and everybody else in the DoD that recognizes the legal problems of the military deciding to withhold information from elected officials because they just don’t like the officials the people elected. But I think the military was right to hold fire and make that recommendation to Biden. And in the interim take time to gather intelligence from what was attempting to gather intelligence.

    1. We have no idea what the real threat was here (if any), but we know that it came from a country that unleashed a virus that killed millions all over the world. A payload the size of a regional jet could carry all manner of threats, and it had no legitimate business in our airspace, or to be allowed to closely surveil our strategic assets.

      1. I’m sure China remembers and fills the same about American P-3 Orions. Fortunately, they didn’t intentionally shoot it down. It was just a dumb hot shot pilot that got too close for safety. I’m not interested in defending China here. I simply don’t want to set a precedent of treating all things we don’t like as hostile until proven otherwise. Because once that is doctrine for us, it will become doctrine for others.

        1. As though it’s not already doctrine for others? Neither China, or Russia, would have hesitated to shoot down such an intrusion, if they had the capability. It’s not about what “we don’t like.”

          1. I look at it as basically a Chinese version of a U-2 overflight. The USSR always tried to intercept them, establishing that you don’t get to overfly someone’s territory without permission (unless you’re in space). Same principle here.

            Not doing anything until it is a fait accompli is a PoS move.

          3. Ed, I’ve been curious about that, can you point me to a source for that? I was looking at a map and figured “you know, if that thing wandered over Russia and they didn’t shoot it down, what does that say? They’re cooperating? That would be troubling.”

      2. A payload the size of a regional jet could carry all manner of threats

        It could, but it won’t. China wouldn’t attack the US in such an obvious way with just a few balloons. But spying? Sure.

      3. ” A payload the size of a regional jet could carry all manner of threats,,,

        Actually, the payload has been more frequently characterized as being the size of two school buses. It’s not the first time the size unit “school bus” has been used by the media, nor is it the first time I’ve noticed that, and poked fun at it. At least one talk radio host, Chris Plante, has picked up on the same thing, and used it hilariously.

        On a more serious note, a payload that size could easily contain a nuke large enough to shut down much (if not all) of the US electric power infrastructure through electromagnetic pulse. It could also contain enough shielding to defeat our means of detecting the presence of special nuclear materials. Or it could carry trillions of times the amount of botulism toxin needed to kill the entire population of the United States (or perform one Botox maintenance procedure on Nancy Pelosi), releasing it in a leisurely pace as it drifted. across our country Except that it didn’t drift. It maneuvered. And we let it. That is scary.

        1. What is interesting to me was *how* it was maneuvered. In order to adjust it’s flight path the Chinese would need some detailed information about prevailing winds aloft. The requires some detailed information about upper atmosphere wind patterns or the ability to drive the ballon up and down forcefully using some type of active thrust to achieve different drift altitudes OR the ability to overcome the prevailing winds at altitude. Wind speed and direction telemetry would be a key requirement. The more active the control the more strain on the solar battery as well. I suspect altitude control into proper drifting prevailing winds would likely use less energy since the power required is largely fixed and known ahead of time.

  6. I think everybody is missing the real scare in the Chinese balloon mess. The Chinese steered the balloon over several sensitive US military sites, and in one case had it stop and hover over them. And yet balloons just drift with the wind.

    This means the Chinese are in complete control of the winds over North America. That should scare you!

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