Rationale.

This is coolbert:

Missiles to shoot down a balloon? Missiles?

"Why the U.S. used missiles, not cheap bullets, to shoot down Chinese balloon, 3 unidentified objects"

From yahoo.com | Peter Weber, Senior editor | February 15, 2023.

U.S. fighter jets fired five heat-seeking AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles to take down four aerial objects floating high over U.S. and Canadian airspace between Feb. 4 and Feb. 12, U.S. officials said. The unidentified floating octagon shot down over Lake Huron in upper Michigan required two Sidewinders, because the first one failed to detect the object, 'did not fuse,' and crashed 'harmlessly' into Lake Huron" 

WHY NOT THE INTERCEPTORS USING THEIR ORGANIC 20 MM CANNON AS A MORE APPROPRIATE MEASURE COMMENSURATE WITH COUNTERING THE PERCEIVED THREAT!

Devoted readers to the blog will have to read the entire article and find out the reasoning and rationality of using missiles rather than cannon during the intercept and shoot-down.

An intercept of this nature using air-air missiles as the weapon of choice fraught with more than a degree of danger? Think from over three decades ago now the strange case and never-fully-explained aviation disaster of Itavia 870. 

A Sidewinder can and does [as apparently in the air over Lake Huron] go rogue. Consequences potentially disastrous.

coolbert.