The Chinese Super-snoopy weather balloon

The term sovereignty is derived from the Latin word “superanus,” meaning supreme power. Nation-state sovereignty involves the interplay of civil, political, and military constituents of authority in the operation of a nation-state’s internal governance. For example, in the United States supreme civil authority is counterbalanced by checks and balances interlaced among legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the federal government. The 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution further allocates supreme authority between the federal government and the states. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

In juxtaposition to nationstate sovereignty, international law establishes legal standards applicable to nation-states. International law fosters the independence and sovereignty of nation-states, while adopting conventions to safeguard international order and the fundamental rights attending humanity. International law traverses boundaries of territorial sovereignty. Under international law, the sovereignty of a nation-state is not otherwise restricted by allegiance to a federation of nation-states, however may be modified by treaty.

Sovereignty not only embraces the land within a nation’s boundaries, but also includes airspace and proximate offshore oceanic waters. Under international law, airspace is a component of sovereign territorial jurisdiction. This corresponds to maritime sovereignty over, on, and under oceans, and extends 12 nautical miles out from a nation’s coastline. A nation-state’s sovereignty over its airspace ends beyond the foggy realm where the atmosphere is insufficient to provide adequate lift for conventional aircraft flight, where the cosmic infinity of outer space is encountered. Concisely stated, under international law, national sovereignty embraces neither the high seas nor outer space.

A nation-state’s exclusive and preclusive sovereignty over its airspace is indispensable to maintain territorial dominion and security. The reach of sovereignty over airspace must keep pace with ever evolving technological advancements and breakthroughs which have occurred since in 1903 the Wright Brothers over Kitty Hawk reached an altitude of 10 feet through powered flight. In 2023, supersonic and hypersonic aircraft and missiles skirt the ionosphere, shrinking continents as if they were contiguous landmasses.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has recently violated the territorial sovereignty of the United States with spy balloons. These balloons must not be confused with Snoopy, the winner of the balloon entry in Macy’s 2022 Thanksgiving Day Parade. The word “snoop” however is conceptually associated with “spy.” The PRC’S Super-snoopy balloon was massive, 200 feet high, and likely weighed thousands of pounds. It had a surveillance payload the size of a regional passenger jet. The PRC maintains its Supersnoopy inadvertently drifted off course. If the territorial sovereignty of the United States had been breached by innocent inadvertence as claimed, this would not amount to an act of war. The PRC’S Super-snoopy pretense is super Looney Tunes Goofy. The PRC within the last year has launched numerous modern, cutting edge spy satellites into outer space. It has softlanded a spacecraft on Mars and established stable communications from its surface. Balloon surveillance is redundant and superfluous in view of PRC’S spy satellites in outer space which are equipped to gather military intelligence without confrontation or violating national sovereignty. There is no fathomable explanation supporting the PRC’S assertion of misadventure. The violation of the sovereignty of the United States for espionage or military purposes, including spying, is an act of war which fully justifies retaliatory diplomatic, economic, and military countermeasures.

There is a compelling and rational meteorological basis supporting the PRC’S allegation that its Super-snoopy, and litter of “unidentified puppies” indeed are weather balloons. Their primary mission is to gather barometric pressure gradients and the temperature of military alertness and preparedness of the United States, as the political climate which attended the determination to either defend, or surrender, its sovereign strategic national interests to the menacing tornado roiling in China. Such geopolitical weather information will help the PRC to better assess the direction of the winds it will drift with in its protracted strategies of confrontational diplomacy and military aggression. More importantly, Super-snoopy helps the PRC to gauge the commitment of the United States to confront its increasingly expansionist claims of sovereignty over the South China Sea, and most alarming, the threat of a hostile annexation of Taiwan.