SPY BALLOON

1. Context

2. Spy Ballon, an old-age Military Device

• Around a decade-and-a-half after the first ever hot air balloon took flight with humans, balloons were already being used for military purposes.
• During the French Revolutionary Wars in the late 18th century, balloons were used to provide a bird’s eye view of the battlefield, with there is documented evidence of their use in the Battle of Fleurus in 1794.
• Since then, balloons have been in use in all kinds of conflict, from the American Civil War to World War I.
• For well over a century, before aircraft technology really took off during the Great War, balloons were the primary mode of big-picture reconnaissance, providing perspective on enemy positions and movements simply impossible to obtain from the ground.

3. Spy Ballon in World War II

• During World War II, as technologies evolved and balloons could be pushed to higher altitudes, their use evolved as well.
• For instance, the Japanese military tried to loft incendiary bombs into US territory using balloons designed to float in jet stream air currents.
• No military targets were damaged, but several civilians were killed when one of the balloons crashed in an Oregon forest.
• After the war, the US military started exploring the use of high-altitude spy balloons, which led to a large-scale series of missions called Project Genet.
• The project flew photographic balloons over Soviet bloc territory in the 1950s- a time before the sheer ubiquitousness of surveillance satellites we see today. 

4. Flashpoints between U.S.A and China

• Besides the discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon floating over the United States, China, and the United State are engaged in a strategic battle for influence over resource-laden Indonesia.
• The U.S. military is expanding its presence in the Phillippines, a sign that the United States is positioning itself to constrain China's armed forces and bolstering its ability to defend Taiwan; and alarmed by shipping chaos and geopolitical fractures, exporters from China are setting up factories in Mexico to preserve their sales to the United States.

5. Air Space

• Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters.
• It is not the same as aerospace, which is the general term for Earth's atmosphere and outer space in its vicinity.
• Airspace may be further subdivided into a variety of areas and zones, including those where there are either restrictions on flying activities or complete prohibition of flying activities.

6. Horizontal  and Vertical Boundary

• By international law, the notion of a country's sovereign airspace corresponds with the maritime definition of territorial waters as being 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) out from a nation's coastline.
• Airspace not within any country's territorial limit is considered international, analogous to the "high seas" in maritime law. However, a country may be in an international agreement and assume responsibility for controlling parts of international airspace, such as those over the oceans.
• For instance, the United States provides air traffic control services over a large part of the Pacific Ocean, even though the airspace is international.
• Under Geneva Convention on the High seas (1958) as well as under international customary law, the freedom of the high seas applies to aerial navigation as well as to maritime navigation.
• when it comes to vertical boundaries there is no international agreement on the vertical extent of sovereign airspace (the boundary between outer space which is not subject to national jurisdiction and national airspace).
• Vertical air space ends, where outer space begins.

7. How relevant are High altitude balloons today?

• While satellites and improved airplane and drone technologies have reduced the salience of high-altitude balloons in the military, they still occupy an important niche.
• Unlike satellites which can cost millions of dollars to create, and require sophisticated technology to launch, high-altitude balloons are cheap and easy to launch and control.
• While balloons cannot directly be steered, they can be roughly guided to a target area by changing altitudes to catch different wind currents, according to a 2005 study for the Air Force’s Airpower Research Institute, reported Reuters.
• Moreover, unlike satellites which are at much higher altitudes and move at incredible speeds, spy balloons have the advantage of being able to hover around at lower heights, thus providing better quality images as well as more time to gather intelligence in a particular area.
• The latest incident, in which the balloon not only reached the mainland US but has since been able to operate uninterrupted, only highlights its continued relevance.

For Prelims & Mains