In an ideal world, the charge that Russia had hacked and released Democratic emails in an attempt to tilt the 2016 presidential election result would have been an opportunity for self-reflection. The US government has interfered dozens upon dozens of times in other countries’ politics, often more successfully and far more violently. Instead of the jingoistic elite and media freakout we got, maybe the outrage US officials and the public felt about Russia’s meddling could have helped them put themselves in these other countries’ shoes, prompting a change in US government behavior.

It’s much the same state of affairs when it comes to China’s alleged spy balloon, which spent the weekend blissfully sailing across US airspace while triggering a round of hairpulling and finger-pointing in Washington.

It was “a clear violation of US sovereignty and international law,” said secretary of state Antony Blinken, a point echoed by numerous other officials, including the bipartisan heads of Congress’s new, Cold War–stoking anti-China committee, who declared that China “should not have on-demand access to American airspace.” The incident “raises questions about how China is navigating its growing position as a global power,” inveighed the New York Times.