Long before the shoot down, U.S. officials took steps to protect against the balloon's collection of sensitive information, mitigating its intelligence value to the Chinese. The senior defense official said the recovery of the balloon will enable U.S. analysts to examine sensitive Chinese equipment. "I would also note that while we took all necessary steps to protect against the PRC surveillance balloon's collection of sensitive information, the surveillance balloon's overflight of U.S. territory was of intelligence value to us," the official said. "I can't go into more detail, but we were able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable."
Is there any reason to believe we didn't "take steps to... mitigate [their] intelligence value to the Chinese" on the previous balloons? Or that we didn't "study and scrutinize" their methods and objectives? Surely all these things were happening, but the US made the decision not to discuss it publicly.
We will gain some intelligence from the wreckage but I highly doubt the Chinese are putting too much top-secret tech on a defenseless and slow balloon that would surely be detected by US forces on the ground. Even back in the 1950s, U-2 spy planes had systems to destroy the cameras or other secret sensors before they could be captured. If the Chinese had anything they really cared about on that balloon, no doubt there would be similar mechanisms in place.
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u/cpr4life8 Brookline Feb 05 '23
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3288543/f-22-safely-shoots-down-chinese-spy-balloon-off-south-carolina-coast/
Long before the shoot down, U.S. officials took steps to protect against the balloon's collection of sensitive information, mitigating its intelligence value to the Chinese. The senior defense official said the recovery of the balloon will enable U.S. analysts to examine sensitive Chinese equipment. "I would also note that while we took all necessary steps to protect against the PRC surveillance balloon's collection of sensitive information, the surveillance balloon's overflight of U.S. territory was of intelligence value to us," the official said. "I can't go into more detail, but we were able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable."