The Certainty of War with China

Back in late January 2023, this memo dated February 1, 2023 from the Department of the Air Force, Headquarters Air Mobility Command which was not intended for public consumption, made the rounds on social media platforms, particularly "X":

 

 

The memo with the subject line "The Next Fight" was written by General Michael A. Minihan, Commander, Air Mobility Command of the United States Air Force.  Here is his biography as it appears on the official website of the United States Air Force:

 

The key excerpt from the memo is as follows (my bold):

 

"I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025. [Chinese President Xi Jinping] secured his third term and set his war council in October 2022. Taiwan’s presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a reason. United States’ presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a distracted America. Xi’s team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025. We spent 2022 setting the foundation for victory. We will spend 2023 in crisp operational motion building on that foundation. If you want to know what the operational motion I demand looks like, look at what Total Force Team Charleston did in January."

 

In the section entitled Commander's Intent, he states the following:

 

"Go faster. Drive readiness, integration, and agility for ourselves and the Joint Force to deter, and if required, defeat China."

 

He does, however, state this:

 

"This is the first of 8 monthly directives from me. You need to know I alone own the pen on these orders. My expectations are high, and these orders are not up for negotiation. Follow them. I will be tough, fair, and loving in my approach to secure victory."

  

Not surprisingly, at the time, a statement from Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brigadier General Patrick S. Ryder stated the following:

 

"The National Defense Strategy makes clear that China is the pacing challenge for the Department of Defense and our focus remains on working alongside allies and partners to preserve a peaceful, free and open Indo-Pacific...".

 

Notice that his comments state that the United States will work with allies and partners and not that it will work with China in an attempt to defuse the growing tensions in the Indo-Pacific region.

 

While this may be the official Pentagon stance, in fact, in a video on the Atlantic Council's YouTube account from October 2022, Admiral Michael M. Gilday, Chief of Naval Operations stated that the United States should be prepared to fight China "tonight" (11 minute 55 second mark):

 

Let's go back to General Minihan to wrap up this posting.  In a September 2023 article on Defense One:

 

...Minihan states the following when asked if the United States will go to war with China within the next two years:

 

"My assessment is that war is not inevitable, but the readiness I’m driving with that timeline is absolutely essential to deterrence and absolutely essential to the decisive victory....There needs to be tension on readiness, more than just ‘be ready tonight.’ You need to have readiness that drives urgency. The urgency and the action are paramount."

 

While none of us know what lies ahead, one thing would appear to be certain; Washington is preparing for it's next war and this time, the adversary will be an extremely capable and heavily armed nation which will be fighting in its own backyard to protect itself from outside forces that really have no business meddling in the region whatsoever.  While war with China would appear to be a certainty, a victory over China is far, far less certain.