Its much like not confronting your rude, abusive, alcoholic uncle until he already wrecked the child's party. You knew he was drunk when he walked in the door but until you had the courage to ask him to leave he'd already ate all the cake and pissed in the pool Sure we shot the ballon down, but it had already traversed the entire country transmitting it's recorded data back to China. These U.S. military spokespeople sound like they've never heard of satellite communications, or even 5G.