I am maybe overanalyzing it but this balloon incident is evidence of the US being a sh*tshow on multiple levels.
1- Why they couldn't shut it down before it entered their airspace and was floating throughout the country? If it was an ISR platform, they spectacularly failed. If it was not, then they shot down a harmless civilian aircraft. The latter is likely the case.
2- The US military's reaction was absurd. How many sorties did they launch? We don't know. But we know they had 3 tankers in patrol most of the time. That is a lot of flight hours flown by a lot of aircraft. It feels like middle-ranking commanders are trying to get promoted by showing their merits. This shouldn't be the case. Using national resources to advance your career is corruption.
3- It feels like the Biden admin and Pentagon were against having talks with China. They needed a scapegoat to indefinitely postpone the meeting and look tough (looking tough is the holy grail of modern anglosphere politics). But thanks to Republicans being tougher and the hysteria of Americans it backfired. The leadership had to make a lot of statements and they had to shoot it down finally. Now they have even worse relations with China, likely lost votes, and made the US look like an idiot. This is just my opinion. You may disagree.
4- Politicians and some common people who are celebrating the shooting down of the balloon... They are funny. This whole event had to be a non-event. It blew out of proportion because the US media is a reality show and American politics are extremely polarized. Any rationality dies in minutes because of these. Also, politicians and media figures trying to get popular by glorifying the military feels very 3rd world. That usually happens in the third world. Republicans who are doing that are especially funny considering they hate the government otherwise.
In the late Ming Dynasty, which is the only country I am talking about and in the hypothetical, you had the following situation:
1. crushing tax burden used to pay for a massive yet ineffective military
2. backwards looking ministers trying to recreate the 'good old days'
3. multiple secret police agencies monitoring each other (Jinyiwei, Eastern Depot, Western Depot)
4. rulers more interested in looking tough than in actual governance
5. caught in a bankrupting war against a foreign power (Japan) invading a vassal state (Korea). while Japan was eventually repelled, it was never punished and would try again later.
6. overprinting of money led to disconnect between reported revenue and purchasing power, then hyperinflation
7. nominally 0 corruption, reality huge corruption and low government efficiency
8. extreme arrogance and believed the outside world had nothing to offer
This is just history. Unrelated to modern day events at all. Yeah.
