The four-star general in charge of the US Air Force’s Air Mobility Command doubled down on a memo he sent to his officers earlier this year where he predicted the US would be at war with China in 2025.
“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,” Gen. Mike Minihan said last week when asked about his prediction, according to Defense One.
He told all the AMC commanders to prepare for “the China fight,” and he now says it delivered success judging from his organization’s recent exercise.
“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,” Minihan told Defense One last week on the sidelines of the Air & Space Forces Association’s annual Air, Space & Cyber conference.
Minihan also emphasized that the memo said, “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” and began with, “I hope I am wrong.”
It’s good to be prepared, but his gut told him we’d be at war with China by 2025.
THE MEMO
The memo, dated February 1 but circulating on social media several days earlier, instructed AMC airmen to “fire a clip into a 7-meter target with the full understanding that unrepentant lethality matters most. Aim for the head.”
Minihan sent it to roughly 107,000 under his command; the official correspondence warns of the rising Chinese threat and instructs soldiers to prepare for the conflict.
The message is the most dramatic from a military officer of the looming likelihood of a war over Taiwan, a crucial ‘choke point’ in the South China Sea.
“Xi’s team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025,” he wrote.
The four-star general further declared that the US’s main goal should be to “deter” a conflict. We couldn’t even win in Afghanistan with 7th-century thugs.
At the same time, we have wide open borders, and young single Chinese men are coming through the Darien Gap. Shouldn’t preparation include closing the borders?
