According to "Breaking Defense," in 2026, the U.S. Army will conduct a high-altitude balloon swarm deployment exercise in the skies over the Indo-Pacific waters, involving multi-domain task forces with a scale of hundreds of balloons.

This exercise is led by the newly established Office of Strategy and Transformation under the office of the Deputy Chief of Intelligence of the U.S. military. The goal is to test the collaborative operational capabilities of high-altitude balloon groups in multiple missions such as intelligence reconnaissance, battlefield communication, electronic interference, and false induction.

U.S. officials emphasized that this is not just a simple technological experiment but preparation for incorporating high-altitude balloons into the regular combat system in the future.

The exercise plan starts from Guam, with the Mariana Islands as the activity area. The selection of this location mainly considers the airflow conditions and airspace openness.

Although the specific flight path has not been publicly disclosed, based on past U.S. military actions, it is likely to approach sensitive areas such as China's southeastern coast, the Taiwan Strait, and the East China Sea, forming a tactical posture that is close but does not enter, attempting to further pressure China's information security and strategic autonomy in the region.

U.S. military releasing a balloon

The reason why the United States targets the stratosphere is fundamentally because this airspace has long been in a legal vacuum.

Different from the outer space where satellites are located and the troposphere where civil aviation activities take place, the stratosphere is between 20 to 50 kilometers. It is neither considered as a satellite orbit nor universally classified as "sovereign airspace" by countries.

Under the current international law system, there is no clear definition of jurisdiction, the nature of aircraft, and the legality of military activities in this area, making it a typical gray zone.

It is precisely because of this that the U.S. military dares to frequently conduct balloon flights under the name of "scientific experiments" and tries to transform this gray zone into an alternative channel during wartime.

In the event of war or a large-scale anti-satellite attack, high-altitude balloons can quickly form a local situational awareness network, support ground forces' battlefield communications and reconnaissance tasks, and even be equipped with low-power electronic suppression devices to interfere with enemy radars and wireless links.

In this scenario, the United States is actually building a low-cost, recoverable quasi-strategic capability, which can patrol and pressure in normal times and replace satellites during wartime.

U.S. balloons

However, this also reflects the growing strategic anxiety of the United States toward China's anti-satellite capabilities.

In recent years, China has made significant breakthroughs in anti-satellite measures such as orbital strikes, co-orbital flying, laser blinding, and cyber intrusions. Especially kinetic destruction tests and high-orbit interference capabilities have been sufficient to threaten the U.S. key navigation, communication, and early warning satellite systems.

The U.S. military originally relied on space-based systems to build global battlefield information advantages. If these systems are weakened or paralyzed in the initial stage of conflict, its forces will face a situation of command chain disruption and communication paralysis.

Therefore, the United States must find alternatives in advance, and balloons are an emergency carrier under this context.

They are low-cost, quick to deploy, do not rely on orbital launches, and can be replenished as needed and flexibly used.

Although they do not have the full-area sensing capabilities of satellites, they can serve as an information lifebuoy at critical moments in local, short-term, and tactical aspects.

American flag and Chinese flag

China, facing this emerging but increasingly normalized stratospheric deployment, should not remain in a state of being annoyed but unable to act, but rather needs to build a complete response mechanism.

On the technical level, China needs to quickly make up for the radar detection capability of the stratosphere, using phased array remote radars, high-altitude optical-electrical tracking equipment, and thermal imaging systems to achieve round-the-clock monitoring of high-altitude balloons entering sensitive areas.

Secondly, it should develop a combination of soft and hard countermeasures, including non-destructive countermeasures such as laser interference, electromagnetic suppression, and navigation deception, as well as specialized kill platforms targeting the flight characteristics of balloons, such as high-altitude drones and high-speed intercept missiles.

Thirdly, China can advocate for setting a red line in the stratosphere, clearly stating that if balloons enter specific exercise areas or strategic airspaces, it will be considered an hostile act, and the right to shoot them down will be reserved. This aims to avoid the U.S. establishing strategic pressure in this gray zone in the future.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7544960794400784937/

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