According to NBC News, a U.S. Air Force general just predicted war between the United States and China in 2025.
This prediction comes from Gen. Mike Minihan, a four-star U.S. Air Force General who is head of the Air Mobility Command (AMC).
AMC consists of some 50,000 service members and 500 planes. According to its website, AMC “provides unrivaled airlift, air refueling, aeromedical evacuation, global air mobility support, and Global Mobility Mission Command to project, connect, maneuver and sustain the Joint Force to achieve national objectives.”
Minihan made the prediction that the United States will soon be at war with China in a memo that he sent on Friday to the officers under his command. This memo was obtained by NBC.
“I hope I am wrong.”
NBC has not provided a copy of the memo. And so, one has to rely on its reporting for the memo’s contents.
Minihan is quoted as writing, “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me will fight in 2025.”
According to NBC, Minihan’s prediction rests, at least in part, on the fact that key elections will take place in 2024. The outlet reports:
Minihan said in the memo that because both Taiwan and the U.S. will have presidential elections in 2024, the U.S. will be ‘distracted,’ and Chinese President Xi Jinping will have an opportunity to move on Taiwan.
This is significant because, as Fox News reports, President Joe Biden has stated that should China invade Taiwan the United State would respond with a deployment of troops.
It appears that, according to NBC’s reporting, in the remainder of the memo, Minihan instructs his troops about how to prepare for the possibility of war with China. Among other things, he tells his troops, throughout February, to “fire a clip into a 7-meter target with the full understanding that unrepentant lethality matters most. Aim for the head.”
It’s real.
AMC has confirmed that the email obtained by NBC is real.
A spokesperson told the outlet:
This is an authentic internal memo from General Minihan addressed to his subordinate command teams. His order builds on last year’s foundational efforts by Air Mobility Command to ready the Mobility Air Forces for future conflict, should deterrence fail.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) appears to have been quick to distance the department from Minihan’s remarks.
A DOD spokesperson told the outlet that Minihan’s remarks “are not representative of the department’s view on China.”
Instead, the DOD said that its “focus remains on working alongside allies and partners to preserve a peaceful, free, and open Indo-Pacific.”
