Waltz: China ‘Testing’ ‘a Backup Plan’ for War with Balloons

On Thursday’s broadcast of Fox News Radio’s “Brian Kilmeade Show,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) stated that China’s balloon program is a backup plan for a war because war games have shown that the first shots are usually fired against satellites and China is testing balloons as a backup plan so they can surveil even if satellites are taken down during a war.

Host Brian Kilmeade stated, [relevant remarks begin around 45:45] “How about the fact that they have a fleet of balloons that are near space that will actually be — at the very least, a failsafe should satellites go down, they’ll have a way to surveil. And they’ve been doing it now for the last five years, they actually…made this announcement in 2019 that they had [this] fleet of balloons.”

Waltz responded, “[I]n all of our war games — and I pray it never comes to this — but in all of our war games, the first shots are fired in cyberspace and actually in space. And once you start knocking down satellites, the debris will knock down all kinds of others and will take our networks offline. And what the Chinese essentially have been testing is a backup plan.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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