General predicts war with China in 2025

General Minihan's memo places war with China in 2025

A leaked internal document from the United States Air Force has put a date on what was previously a scenario for analysis. General Mike Minihan ordered his subordinates to prepare a report, due by the end of February, on the necessary measures for a conflict with China, which he himself places in 2025. The leak circulated on social media and in the press — Reuters, Bloomberg, New York Post. What's striking is not the prediction, which is handled as a hypothesis. What's striking is that a military commander wrote it in a memo.

What exactly does Minihan's memo say[/I]

Minihan's message to the commanders under his command requested concrete preparations before the end of February. He wasn't talking about a theoretical scenario: the memo warned, according to the leak disseminated by Kim Dotcom, that "time is running out for the United States". The news was accompanied by a warning from the four-star general himself about the risk of conflict in two years. In practice, a military commander setting a timeline.

Some point out that preparing for a possible war is one thing, and planning for it is another, and that confusing the two is manipulation. It's a reasonable distinction, but it doesn't change the central fact: the memo exists and sought an operational reaction.

Why 2025 and not sooner or later

In the debate, Henry Kissinger was cited, who believed that without an understanding with China, the United States would enter a pre-World War I situation, where minor conflicts are resolved immediately until one gets out of hand. The date was set by the general himself, with no further explanation in the leaked document.

The precedent that is repeated in comments is that of Hitler, who in 1934 already announced by telegraph that he would acquire the Danzig corridor in 1939: wars are also announced in advance. Those who maintain that the leak is pure propaganda forget that propaganda is also executed.

China is not Iraq: the argument that dismantles the timeline

The main counterargument, raised by several participants, is material. The United States cannot sustain two simultaneous fronts — Russia and China — and the Ukrainian conflict will not be resolved by 2025. The only way to wear them down would be to arm India as a proxy, but India buys Russian weapons and doesn't seem willing to serve as a battering ram. Added to this is the sheer industrial volume of China, which has no comparison to Western production capacity, and a geographical distance that makes any intervention more expensive.

The balance of power, on the other hand, remains favorable to the United States in the short term. Its military superiority is fruta today, others argue, and China will take two or three decades to match it. In other words: there is consensus that war is not in anyone's interest, and total disagreement on whether it is sufficiently in anyone's interest to avoid it.

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The date was set by a four-star general, not a pundit. That such a memo circulated in the international press says less about the general than about the system that leaks it.