The U.S. Air Force's Air Mobility Command, Gen. Mike Minihan, ordered his subordinates to prepare for a war against China, which could take place as early as 2025. In particular, by the end of February 2023, they should report what exactly they are doing in terms of readiness to fight against the PRC in 2 years, The Drive reports.
Special attention should be paid to the fact that the Commander of the Air Mobility Command ordered his subordinates to practice with small arms as if they really had to shoot a gun directly at the enemy's head. And also, for the first time in a while, American aviators are again training with M4 carbines in case they have to shoot back at the enemy.
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At first glance, it’s "only" the Aviation Command, which manages the combat work of transporters and refueling planes. But in the context of a war against China in the Pacific Ocean, this segment of the US Air Force may bear the heaviest part of all efforts. This battleground is characterized in particular by the limited number of airfields, which will surely become a target for China’s missiles. And the more operationally the transport aviation and the fleet of "air tankers" work, the greater will be the survivability of fighters and strike aircraft of the United States and allies.
It is unlikely that the US military does not take into account the simulation of the conflict over Taiwan, which the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) described in the study, when making decisions on preparing for war against China. In the text, CSIS experts reiterated the thesis that in 3 weeks of the war for Taiwan against the PRC, Americans might use more than 5,000 cruise missiles, including 4,000 AGM-158 air cruise missiles and up to 500 Tomahawk missiles for hitting ground targets (TLAM).
But there is also another important "signal" in this study: depending on the nature of the war, the US Air Force can lose from 10% to 40% of its aircraft in three weeks of the conflict, after that Americans may need a decade to restore their air power.
In addition to the general geopolitical context, the above may at least tangentially relate to issues of support for Ukraine, in particular, the possible provision of long-range missiles. Because it should not be ruled out that as relations with Beijing deteriorate, the White House and the Pentagon will be forced to accumulate stocks of aviation weapons and long-range missiles in order to prevent another major war in the world.
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