How does the military decide if an unidentified flying object can or should be shot down or not?

Question

According to NY Times, the military shot down a few unidentified flying objects after being visually confirmed:

The U.S. and Canada are investigating three unidentified flying objects shot down over North America in the past three days. Militaries have adjusted radars to try to spot more incursions.

American officials do not know what the objects were, much less their purpose or who sent them.

Shortly put, the events were something along the line:

• military radars spotted some UFOs and sent aircrafts for visual confirmation
• the objects were shot down
• the US Military did not know (at that time) what those objects were

This makes me wonder how can they decide to shoot down an object, if the nature is not clear? How do they know if the object is not hazardous (e.g., biological or maybe even nuclear)?

How does the military decide if an unidentified flying object can or should be shot down or not?

Answer 1

The same way they decide on every other kinetic action: Rules of Engagement and Rules for the Use of Force.

Also, self defense. Roughly: if someone is currently shooting you, you can generally shoot back to make them stop. I don't know of any reason that would apply with UFOs, but if the Martians attack tomorrow, self defense would be a factor.

Generally, Rules of Engagement (ROE) for United States forces are the rules around what you can and cannot do to accomplish some mission outside the USA. Wikipedia has a good summary, with an example (link). Generally for any deployment, you would have a blanket policy on ROE (like the example in the link), which supports international-law obligations and, perhaps more importantly, supports the overarching mission. I think there are weird corner cases where ROE could apply inside the US borders (like invasion, maybe?), but the good rule of thumb is that ROE is for outside the US. It is very easy to imagine that in something like Desert Storm, shooting down UFOs would be entirely at the pilot's discretion (or wing leader, or whoever has local command). In something like the Somalia Relief operation in the '90s, it would be very surprising if UFOs could be shot down. The base instruction for this is CJCSI 3121.01, which establishes standing rules of engagement which apply whenever something more specific is not available.

Inside US borders there is a similar document, but with a different purpose. Where ROE are focused on legally and effectively achieving some operational or strategic objective, Rules for the Use of Force (RUF) focus on DoD use of force in a supporting role (like drug interdictions, where some Navy aircraft might be acting subsidiary to the Coast Guard). I am told this focus is to ensure compliance with the posse comitatus act, but I don't have any detailed insight. There is no underlying or cohesive framework for RUF, which makes it hard to provide a general answer.

In either case: ROE and RUF policy is controlled by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Changes or augmentations to ROE/RUF can be proposed by local commanders and must be approved by SECDEF. It is exceedingly unlikely (and probably illegal) for RUF to give the military authority to shoot down weather balloons different from, say, whatever authority the Coast Guard has.

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So:

• If the UFO is attacking in a way that makes self-defense viable and valid, the decision to shoot it down can be made very locally.

• If outside the US, consult the relevant ROE.

• If inside the US, and operating as part of some other agency, consult the RUF.

Outside the US, ROE tend to allow leeway for commanders to make decisions in line with force protection and their overall goals. Inside the US, I presume that anything other than strictly-defensive actions would need SECDEF approval, as it is essentially SECDEF policy that prevents engagement.

(I am unclear on what happens if SECDEF and the president disagree in a serious way, e.g. if Biden said "shoot" and Austin said "no". At that point, the UFO is probably a lower priority.)

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@cpast corrected an error:

Minor correction: Per JP 3-27, air and maritime homeland defense missions are under the ROE framework instead of the RUF framework. Land homeland defense operations within US territory are RUF, but this air mission generally wouldn’t be.

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Additional reading here.

Answer 2

At least in Canada and the US, it won't be the military that decides. It will be some political authority. Depending on the nature of the perceived threat, it may go to the PM or POTUS. Or it may only go to cabinet. But the military won't ordinarily just start shooting at something without the go-ahead.

There may be policies for emergency circumstances where consulting is impossible due to time constraints. Say, something was coming in at ICBM type speeds and there was only a half hour (or maybe less) of warning. Maybe you can't get the PM on the line in time. (Though, pretty sure Canada at least does not have the ability to do much of anything about something coming that fast.)

But for stuff coming in at ordinary speeds, the question is going to go to elected officials, quite likely the national leader. This is because there is, if it turns out to have been something non-dangerous and from another country, there will be a lot of international questions asked. If it was, for example, a crazy new type of aircraft with people on board, shooting it down would be a Very Bad Thing. The type of thing wars have started over.

As well, the military folks who would be doing the shooting are not the people who have other resources relevant to the issue.

In cases of some object that could be a hazard to other aircraft, there will likely be some efforts to identify it. Maybe some fly-by missions. Some looking through telescopes and examining radar and trying to send radio messages. Maybe some asking-around in diplomatic circles if anybody is missing a balloon. Some looking back through various radar records and such to see if anything was detected on the way.

So Fighter Command Alpha (or whatever) can decide to do some of that. But they very likely don't have diplomatic contacts to ask for chatter about over-flights. They won't have intel on crazy new airplanes that some crazy tech company is rolling out. They won't have data on what people have been seeing in the sky for the last week. They are busy doing things to keep their aircraft and pilots ready and in good shape and training. And they have not got the authority to get Spy Agency One to talk to Spy Agency Two and trade data on things that look like balloons. Only the political leaders can wave that baton.

There are a number of factors that might make it more likely to be attacked.

• It's headed someplace sensitive like a military base.
• Nobody claims it. Nobody gave warning of releasing or losing anything like it.
• It's headed for places it could do damage to just by being there. Big cities, airports, industrial facilities where even just a few 10's of kg of metal or a few square meters of balloon fabric could cause significant damage.
• It is in air-flight lanes.
• It shows no response to attempts to contact it.

Evidence the thing is being controlled could go either way. If, for example, it is busy catching wind in a particular direction by changing altitude, then it heads straight at a nuclear missile silo, chances go way up that it gets attacked. If it shows no evidence at all of being controlled, that also tends to make it more likely to be attacked.

If it's heading to "big open places" with nothing in particular that could be harmed or be of military interest, and if it's not in a place likely to be a hazard to navigation, chances are excellent it gets watched and left alone.

Answer 3

It isn't easy to say. Even the current reaction to UFOs has divided Washington right now according to politicians:

No one has a playbook in politics for shooting down UFOs that are not aliens. - Democratic strategist Jared Leopold

Generally, however, decisions about U.S.-Canadian airspace are made with intel from NORAD or the North American Aerospace Defense Command. It is a combined organization run by the two countries that have been around since 1958. There is a main four-star general or admiral from the U.S. and a deputy commander from the Royal Canadian Air Force. NORAD works to try to provide an accurate picture of any aerospace or maritime threat to the United States or Canada.

All of this depends on which area of NORAD is being entered and for what purpose to make a decision, which is why it is not clear. For example, there is a particular Canadian NORAD region monitored by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Border Services Agency along with US agencies to direct aircraft to the nearest air base or shoot it down based on their collective decisions without necessarily telling higher-ups until after the fact. Meanwhile, a huge part of the continental US has the Continental U.S. NORAD Region has the 263rd Army Air and Missile Defense Command occasionally take lead in operations with Homeland Security (with even the POTUS potentially being involved) in order to detect, divert, or defeat airborne attacks in accordance with Operation Noble Eagle - a playbook for dealing with homeland security threats developed since 9/11.

Answer 4

"The military" does not generally decide. They can recommend, but the civilian government gives the go ahead.

But these last 3 balloons were a specific hazard for aircraft navigation. They were cruising along at 40,000 feet or lower, and apparently not under any control or notification.

Civilian aircraft fly at these altitudes.

There are specific international rules for things like this flying around. Notify the relevant owners of the airspace, update its location every 2 hours, etc, etc.

These objects did not seem to be under any positive control. Or if they were being controlled, the controllers told no one.

Result, shoot it down.

Answer 5

In short: The answer is state secret.

The very important thing: everything is very well planned, for all imaginable and even unimaginable scenario. You live in the USA? They know, what will they do if an unknown flying object is coming from Canada, Mexico or the Western, Eastern, or Southern coast. They know, what will they do if it is a known plane, they know what to do if it is a plane taken over by terrorists, etc. Also your scenario is on the list.

These are all top secret. Only very few people must know them in details. Probably not even Biden knows the details, only the major keypoints, such decision questions, like will the military shut down an USA passanger plane if it is goes to New York and when.

After his inauguration, these are among the first things what they check and possibly, modify.

Biden personally knows as he himself approved and signed them, sometime in january 2021.

No one knows, what is in them.

What is known: they will react quickly and the key figures in the relevant command chains, all know what will they do. The president himself will know the events probably only after they happened.

(P.s. the same is the case in all sane countries of the world, and not only for such event like an "ufo visit", but also in the case of unexpected military attack from any side, in any form.)