An F-16C Fighting Falcon flies over Afghanistan after an in-air refueling mission in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, July 22, 2014. (USAF/Vernon Young Jr.)
WASHINGTON — Chinese balloons have overflown the Gulf region, a top US general told reporters Monday, a revelation that comes after a 72 hour period which saw the US shoot down three flying objects in American airspace — and acknowledgements from the Pentagon that it has changed how it surveils US territory.
“We have seen surveillance balloons in the AOR,” said Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, commander of Air Forces Central, referring to US Central Command’s area of operations. “They did not go anywhere near any of our sensitive sites, but we have seen them in the past, transiting through the region … they haven’t been a threat to us, but we’ve certainly observed them in the region.”
Grynkewich, who was speaking at the Center for a New American Security, said that the balloons CENTCOM had tracked were Chinese. While he used the term “surveillance” to describe them, he noted that “they have not hung out over American bases or been any threat to our forces whatsoever,” and as a result it’s hard to know what the purpose of the floating devices was.
“In fact, the last incident that I can recall off the top of my head, [the object] primarily stayed out over the water, and just transited through the region,” he said of an incident in the fall. “And we’re not sure, was it a weather balloon? Was it some sort of a surveillance balloon? You know, we never got up close to it because it was never a threat. We never had to go inspect it and get a visual identification of it.
“There’s no regular pattern to it. And it’s not — it doesn’t happen a lot. So in the time that I’ve been in command, I can think of one main instance and maybe over the past couple of years before that, one or two others,” he added.
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It’s been an eventful 10 days since the US revealed a Chinese-made balloon was floating some 60,000 feet above the US, on a track that brought it over a number of key nuclear facilities. While China has claimed the balloon was just a scientific device, the White House has been adamant it was a military spy craft, and eventually shot it down on Feb. 4 off the east coast.
Congressional admonishment about how long it took to shoot that balloon down followed, and then more rapid action. On Feb. 10, the US shot down a smaller device over Alaskan airspace. On Feb. 11, another device was downed over Canada, with the aid of US aircraft. And on Feb. 12 yet another device was taken down over Michigan. In the three most recent cases, the US has yet to share more information about what kind of object was shot down, other than to say they were smaller than the Chinese balloon taken down earlier in the month.
The political pressure, combined with the increase in shootdowns of these airborne vehicles, has created the sense that the US has changed its posture from one where it would monitor its airspace but not worry about small systems, to one where anything over America will be target practice for the US Air Force. But speaking to reporters Sunday, a defense official denied that there was a new strategic posture.
“We are taking this very much on a case-by-case basis. Each operation has — has been different, and we will certainly keep you updated as we continue to learn more about these objects and the PRC [People’s Republic of China] balloon, and what that means for us going forward,” Melissa Dalton, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and hemispheric affairs, said.
And yet, something has changed in recent days, according to Gen. Glen VanHerck, the commander of US Northern Command and NORAD: the detail of what the US is tracking.
“Radars essentially filter out information based on speed. So you can set various gates, we call them ‘velocity gates’ that allow us to filter out low-speed clutter,” he explained. “If you have radars on all the time that we’re looking at anything from zero speed up to, say, 100, you would see a lot more information. We have adjusted some of those gates to give us better fidelity on seeing smaller objects. You can also filter out by altitude.
“And so, with some adjustments, we’ve been able to get a better at categorization of radar tracks now. And that’s why I think you’re seeing these overall. Plus, there’s a heightened alert to look for this information.”
Those adjustments mean that more items are being picked up — but given the expanded haystack, it might be harder to see what the needles are, warned Gen. CQ Brown, the Air Force chief of staff.
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The Chinese balloon “I think was something that got all of our attention [and is leading to] better scrutiny of our airspace. Also the adjusting of the radar sensitivities, which means we’re seeing more things than we would normally see,” Brown said Monday. “But we don’t fully appreciate or understand exactly what we’re seeing. And so, you know, as we try to do the recovery efforts for some of the things that we’ve shot down, we’ll know more.”
Of the four shoot-downs to occur, three were conducted by F-22s and one was conducted by an F-16. Given the cost per flying hours and the expense of the Sidewinder missiles used, there are growing questions about whether the US is going to be on the losing end of a cost curve when it comes to taking down small, relatively inexpensive devices.
Grynkewich, the AFCENT head, flew both those aircraft earlier in his career. While he deferred the question of whether these are the right tools for the job to NORTHCOM, he noted that “just from a fighter pilot perspective, you know, if it’s high enough, then the F-22 is going to be your weapon of choice,” should a decision be made to take something down. “From a purely tactical perspective, high-altitude, sure, an F-22 makes a lot of sense. Lower altitude, things like the F-16, I think was reported, shot one down at 20,000 feet or so recently, that makes perfect sense too.”
And asked how he feels about seeing the F-22 get its first air-to-air kills since going operational in 2005 be against balloons or similar objects, Grynkewich grinned and responded, “Hey, a kill’s a kill.”
Ashley Roque and Theresa Hitchens in Washington contributed to this report.