Late last week, Air Force General Mike Minihan, head of the Air Mobility Command, sent a memo to his officers telling them to be ready for war with communist China by 2025. Consider this excerpt:

“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.”

I know many people at the White House and the Pentagon are not happy about this memo, especially since General Minihan is reminiscent of General Patton. He urged the troops under his command to prepare by firing “a clip into a 7-meter target with the full understanding that unrepentant lethality matters most. Aim for the head.”

I worry about Minihan keeping his job. We have been fighting wars with one eye on the New York Times editorial board, as if our tactics must satisfy them. We have been apologizing when we have been lethal in combat. But that is the reason why we have a military — to “kill the enemy.” Not nation-building or baby sitting at the southern border.

I have no doubt that we have great fighting men and women in our Armed Forces. It’s the bureaucratic leadership I worry about. A Pentagon spending one second and one dime telling officers how to handle pregnant men is not a serious military.

And if we’re reading these stories, you can bet that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are reading these stories, too.

If Gen. Minihan happens to retire soon, I have no doubt that someone like him would be passed over for someone else who’s all in on “gender affirming care” and the rest of the woke agenda.

Are We Ready?

Here’s something to keep in mind: As unpleasant as General Minihan’s “gut feeling” may be, this is his area of expertise. He certainly knows a lot more about the military threats to this country than most of the people popping off on the Sunday talk shows.

If the general is right, are we ready for war with communist China or another hostile power like Iran or North Korea?

Our industrial base most certainly is not ready. For decades, administrations of both parties — except the Trump/Pence Administration — pursued insane policies that traded our manufacturing base for cheap goods from communist China while we closed our own factories. That idiocy may now come back to haunt us.

A recent report demonstrated that we do not have the industrial capacity to keep up with the demands of the Ukrainian war, which we are now clearly engaged in as a proxy. And “war games” run by Washington, D.C., think tanks of a potential war with communist China show us running out of critical weapons in a week and suffering enormous losses.

Biden’s Word

Joe Biden is taking flak for a tweet he posted this weekend, “My word as a Biden: I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future than I am today.” I won’t bore you by pointing out the absurdity of Joe Biden telling us to trust the “word” of the Biden family.

This daily report has laid out lie after lie after lie, many of them very damaging to the Republic, like when Biden lies about the “systemic racism of law enforcement.” But I will pass on the stupidity of his choice of words for now.

Biden has big problems, and so do we.

For example, according to the latest poll by NBC News, 71% of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. That’s the eighth time in the past nine surveys when the “wrong track” sentiment exceeded 70%, and the longest stretch of “sustained pessimism” in the poll’s history.

But Biden is telling nearly three-fourths of the country not to believe their own eyes, everything is just fine.

Why is there such angst, depression and fear in a nation known for its congenital optimism? There are many reasons.

Rampant violent crime, which is demonic in its intensity and naked nihilism.

The COVID pandemic and the loss of freedom that followed has had a big impact on attitudes.

Americans believe our enemies are getting stronger as we get weaker.

There is incredible corruption at every level of government and society — from the White House and the FBI to the local school board.

There is a falling away of faith, and a radical rejection of normalcy.

All of these things are evidence that more and more Americans are abandoning any concept of a “virtuous life,” and I believe that explains much of the pessimism.

There is a huge debate raging right now within “the Church” about what the role of churches should be in America in 2023.

There are powerful forces arguing from the pulpit that Christians should abandon politics because it is hurting the cause of Christ, and they are also arguing that the decaying culture should be brought into the church in order for the church to be “relevant.”

Either of these developments are bad on their own at any time, but they are especially destructive during the crises we’re facing now.

The problems America faces now cannot be solved without the active involvement of Christians at every level. The modern American church will continue to lose attendees and souls if it continues down the road away from biblical truth and how we’re supposed to live our lives.

As I argued in the beginning of this report, we must rearm militarily. But we must also rearm spiritually.