Chinese balloons conjure past confrontations over electronic eyes in the sky

This month's sudden national fixation on flyover spy balloons from China is far from the first time "eyes in the sky" have caused confrontations between the U.S. and rival superpowers.

Espionage has been a feature of international relations throughout history, and spying has led to many conflicts over the ages. But aerial reconnaissance and high-resolution cameras have added a sense of violation that comes intolerably close to home and raises the stakes.

But we should remember that the U.S., while surely spied upon, has been the world leader in aerial reconnaissance through at least the last few generations of technology.

Francis Gary Powers was a household name in the America of the early 1960s. For at least some Americans, that name still evokes an era when the world seemed on the brink of nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet