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“My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” troubling words US Air Force General Michael Minihan has issued as warning to his command — raising questions about the US, Australia, and other regional allies’ modernisation and preparedness efforts.
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Next year, 2024, is a year of convergence, opening the door for the potential forceful reunification of Taiwan — the Taiwanese presidential elections, and what is sure to be a hotly contested and fiery US presidential election the same year, setting the stage for a truly monumental shift in the balance of global power and stability.
This convergence comes at a time of growing antagonism and sabre rattling from Beijing seeking to solve its “Taiwan problem”, reinforced by growing speculation from leading US defence leaders like former Commander, US Indo-Pacific Commander, Admiral Philip Davidson testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee, “Taiwan is clearly one of their [Beijing’s] ambitions before then. And I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact in the next six years.”
This ominous warning heralds a more concerning impact for the global order, should a conflict break out of Taiwan, with ADM Davidson further adding, “I worry that they’re [Beijing] accelerating their ambitions to supplant the United States and our leadership role in the rules-based international order, which they’ve long said that they want to do that by 2050. I’m worried about them moving that target closer.”
Now, those well-documented concerns of ADM Davidson have been further reinforced by General Michael Minihan, Commander, Air Mobility Command, who recently penned a letter to “all AMC Wing Commanders” which outlined: “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025. Xi 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,” GEN Minihan explained.
While the Cold War-era policy of “strategic ambiguity” the United States has managed to keep the tensions across the Taiwan Strait from spiralling out control, in spite of various periods of flare up, such as the Taiwan Strait Crisis in the mid-90s, however, this strategy now appears to be largely defunct — with the US actively stepping up their efforts to deter Chinese aggression across the domains.
This is best explained by GEN Minihan, who states in his commander’s notice, “We spent 2022 setting the foundation for victory. We will spend 2023 in crisp operational motion building on that foundation.”
Commander’s intent and a clear end state
GEN Minihan outlines a clear commander’s intent that seeks “to ready the Air Mobility Forces for future conflict, should deterrence fail” with an emphasis on readiness, integration, and agility to enable the broader US Joint Force in the Indo-Pacific to “deter, and if required, defeat China”. GEN Minihan identifies that this will be the first of eight monthly directives.
The US Indo-Pacific Command will call upon the US Air Force’s Air Mobility Command to play a critical role in supporting combat operations beyond the growing range of Beijing’s complex web of anti-access/area-denial (A2AD) systems, combining land, sea and air-based sensors and effectors that are designed to neutralise the strategic game-changer platforms, like the US Navy’s Carrier Strike Groups and key air platforms, like the Air Force’s F-22 Raptor fighters.
Air Mobility Command’s vast fleet of air-to-air refuelling tanker aircraft, ranging from the new KC-46 Pegasus to the Cold War-era KC-135 Stratotankers, will serve to provide US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps combat aircraft with critical operational and strategic flexibility by increasing the combat range of these platforms beyond the reach of Chinese weapons systems.
Meanwhile, the tactical and strategic airlifters of Air Mobility Command will provide the US Army and Marines Corps with increased flexibility to support operational manoeuvrability to blunt enemy counter attacks, leveraging a range of next-generation capabilities, including platforms like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), light amphibious warship and in-development autonomous Naval Strike Missile-equipped Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESS) with the capacity to secure bubble within A2/AD networks and further avenues to strike back.
To deliver these capabilities reliably and en masse, GEN Minihan details the “End State” he envisages for the Air Mobility Command and its broader impact on the Joint Force, saying, “A fortified, ready, integrated, and agile Joint Force Maneuver Team ready to fight and win inside the first island chain.”
Take risks, but calculated risks
GEN Minihan is quick to emphasise the importance of Air Mobility Command personnel taking calculated risks across their training, test and evaluation processes in order to “attain higher readiness, integration, and agility”. GEN Minihan anticipates that this rapid and calculated approach to training will provide the Air Mobility Command with increased readiness to respond to any contingency.
As part of this, GEN Minihan also stressed the importance of Air Mobility Command personnel pushing beyond their comfort zone, stating, “Run deliberately, not recklessly. If you are comfortable in your approach to training, then you are not taking enough risk.”
This approach is also designed to extend to developing and fielding new capabilities and is typified by an effort for KC-135 units to coordinate to provide a conceptual means for air delivering 100 COTS UAVs from a single aircraft — for an as yet undetermined purpose, however, the point remains.
Lessons for Australia’s future strategic planning
There is no doubt that Australia’s position and responsibilities in the Indo-Pacific region will depend on the nation’s ability to sustain itself economically, strategically and politically in the face of rising regional and global competition. Despite the nation’s virtually unrivalled wealth of natural resources, agricultural and industrial potential, there is a lack of a cohesive national security strategy integrating the development of individual, yet complementary public policy strategies to support a more robust Australian role in the region.
While contemporary Australia has been far removed from the harsh realities of conflict, with many generations never enduring the reality of rationing for food, energy, medical supplies or luxury goods, and even fewer within modern Australia understanding the socio-political and economic impact such rationing would have on the now world-leading Australian standard of living.
Enhancing Australia’s capacity to act as an independent power, incorporating great power-style strategic economic, diplomatic and military capability serves as a powerful symbol of Australia’s sovereignty and evolving responsibilities in supporting and enhancing the security and prosperity of Indo-Pacific Asia, this is particularly well explained by Peter Zeihan, who explains: "A de-globalised world doesn’t simply have a different economic geography, it has thousands of different and separate geographies. Economically speaking, the whole was stronger for the inclusion of all its parts. It is where we have gotten our wealth and pace of improvement and speed. Now the parts will be weaker for their separation."
Accordingly, shifting the public discussion and debate away from the default Australian position of “it is all a little too difficult, so let’s not bother” will provide unprecedented economic, diplomatic, political and strategic opportunities for the nation.
As events continue to unfold throughout the region and China continues to throw its economic, political and strategic weight around, can Australia afford to remain a secondary power, or does it need to embrace a larger, more independent role in an era of increasing great power competition?
Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia’s future role and position in the Indo-Pacific region and what you would like to see from Australia’s political leaders in terms of partisan and bipartisan agenda setting in the comments section below, or get in touch
Stephen Kuper
Steve has an extensive career across government, defence industry and advocacy, having previously worked for cabinet ministers at both Federal and State levels.
