Why Should We Care Whether America Has Enough Airlift? | with General Mike Minihan
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And welcome everyone to Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific brought to you by our producer IEJ Media and our sponsor Bauer Group Asia. More about them in due course. I am the former military officer Ray Powell. I am in California. Jim Caruso, the former diplomat, is back in New York. Jim, how is New York? You know, coming from the desert to the monsoon season in New York is really interesting.

Well, our guest today is well known to both of us. He is General Mike Minahan, callsign Mini. He is the former commander of the Air Mobility Command, although you and I knew him better as the first the chief of staff and then later the deputy commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. General Minahan, how are you, sir? Doing well, and I'm honored to be here and grateful for this opportunity. Good morning. All right. Well, I'm going to come right out and say it. I'm going to start with you.

Airlift is boring. Nobody ever made a movie about airlifters. I mean, Tom Cruise didn't make a movie about airlifters. I mean, they even made a movie or a miniseries about diplomats, I think probably based on Jim's life. So why should the Indo-Pacific care about airlift? Well, there's a number of reasons. And the way I describe mobility, which is not just airlift, but air refueling as the offensive line.

of a football team. So rarely gets the glory, but you certainly know when you have a good one and you certainly know when you don't have a good one, you know, and that's, that's really the fundamental aspects of what mobility brings to the fight. You know, I say that, that, that mobility is the most relied upon force in the history of warfare. You know, both a comment on, you know, what America brings in terms of hope and projecting power,

Certainly not meant to be arrogant or seek sympathy with that statement, but everybody's success, especially in the Indo-Pacific, is depending on mobility to get it done. Everybody's success. We are the meaningful maneuverer.

That can cross the tyranny of distance and the tyranny of water. I like to add both in this discussion. Tyranny of distance exists everywhere, whether you're doing an evacuation out of Kabul, whether you're running the guns to Ukraine, whether you're running support to Israel or feeding Gaza. Distance is everywhere. But the tyranny of the water matters here, you know, in in Europe.

You just have to if you can just fly 20 more minutes, you'll come across a NATO standard runway with 8000 feet standard revetments, standard ramp everywhere. You know, there is a place to set down, get fuel, get cargo, do all the things, get something fixed. But that simply doesn't exist in the Pacific. So if you've been on an airplane military from the front end, as far as you can see, is water forever.

And if you've been in the back end of even a commercial airliner, you know, my flights from Washington, D.C. to Korea used to be 15 hours long. It's a lot of water. It's mostly water. So mobility is the meaningful maneuver. And it's the only thing that can pierce the tyrannies of distance and water in the meaningful amount of time to maneuver the joint force to a position of advantage so it can be lethal when it needs to be.

All right. Mike, you described in a recent tweet the problems we're having as a U.S. Air Force and military in providing these capabilities. Can you explain those to us? Absolutely. I'm a bit frustrated that we tend to go to a comfortable place when advocating for air power that advocates for platforms over effects. And I'm really concerned about recent developments

advocacy that just talks about the strikers, the fighters in certain aspects of the Air Force instead of the Air Force as a whole. I call this the equilibrium. The equilibrium matters now more than ever.

Back in the 50s, they designed the B-52 and the KC-135 as a system that could both conventionally and strategically deliver deterrence and decisive victory. But it was a system. It was about the effect of projecting long-range precision strike. It was about the effect of strategic deterrence and the readiness that came along with that. And we've wandered away from it.

We have 100% wandered away from looking at things in terms of teaming and integration. And we've gotten to a position where we're advocating for a fighter platform, a next generation specific thing. And we need to get back to the old school Air Force, the Air Force that mutinied in 1947, was known for thinking differently. And we need to worry about our equilibrium because...

If we don't get this right, we're going to design, and I believe we're already there, we've got a force that can't be supported by mobility. Mobility has been the bill payer for other platforms for decades and intentionally. And we've been lulled into a false sense of security because we haven't been contested.

You know, I came into Air Mobility Command on the eve of or, you know, just after the evacuation of Afghanistan, just after the evacuation of Kabul. And then we went straight into Ukraine, straight into Israel, straight into Mobility Guardian, straight into withdrawal from Niger, straight into airdropping food to Gaza. And as challenging as those were, it's child play to compare to what might happen in the Pacific.

So we need to get back to basics in the Air Force, and we need to worry about equilibrium. We need to worry about joint effects. We need to worry about designing a force that can actually get the job done instead of a force that will be tethered to a 1950s and a 1960s tanker.

So recently you put up a pretty provocative LinkedIn post and your last paragraph says, we don't need another white paper or staff reorg. We need action, bold, unapologetic, urgent action. What action do we need? Right now, if it were me, I would 100% stop talking about being a warrior and just start acting like one.

And that means the first thing it means is get in the planning room and figure this out.

I'm a believer that you can't know what you need in five or 10 years if you can't describe what you can do today. So anybody that served on a team with me, going back to my earliest days as a squadron commander, we worry about today so that we can understand what we need for 5, 10, 15, 20 years out. And I just don't believe right now we're in a position where we can truly describe what America's punching power is.

And we've got an insidious accumulation of caveats, an insidious accumulation of risk. And we need to get the team in a basement and plan. So this is about planning. And I will be very clear. And I'm not, you know, I'm certainly no scholar. And other people have said it better than me. This is not about the plan. This is about planning.

So, you know, let's commit ourselves to knowing what we can do tonight. And then as soon as we know that, let's figure out all the things we need to do to close the gap. So we're not going to become a warrior-centric force by talking about it and addressing things that are...

that seem like they're important, but the most important thing that we can do is get in a room and plan and then start driving hard. We need to accept more risk

We need to get after more robust rehearsal oriented operations instead of exercise and TTXs. We need to rehearse for what we're going to really do. And then I'm a big fan of deterrence, you know, and I've been saying this for a while. And the model I use is you have to communicate well, you have to deny benefit and you have to impose a cost.

So, those are all things you might want to ask me about this later, but when we executed Mobility Guardian, the Pacific, those are the three things we wanted to do. We wanted to communicate our will, that we are here and we are ready and we are about the Pacific. We wanted to impose a cost. You have to worry about us. You have to worry about mobility being here, piercing the tyrannies of distance, piercing the tyranny of water, and then we are 100%

I'm going to deny the benefit of a permissive theater to those that would want to do us harm. So, you know, that is the first and foremost thing I would do. If I had a magic wand and I could wave it, I'd say,

Let's get the whole team in a basement. And then as soon as we're done with that, it's got to be the whole joint team, the whole government team, because this is going to be a whole nation effort. And we just got to start making incremental steps and really be able to decide to describe what we can do tonight. Hopefully that makes sense. So when I work with you in Dopecom, it was a lot of it looked to me like a whole lot of planning going on.

But the gap seemed to be every time the commander went to Washington saying, from our exercises and planning, these are the gaps that we need plugged. Was anything ever resolved out of those discussions in Washington? Yeah, I think, you know, when you look back, you know, now in four administrations that have put an enormous amount of precedence on the Pacific, you know, whether it was a pivot in DS-1, you

NDS to now now certainly what the president's defense strategy. Yes. National defense strategy. So, you know, we have all seen four administrations now bring priority on the Pacific. But what never came was the resourcing ever.

And so, you know, there's an overall concern I have where the warfighter voice is somewhat drowned out the closer you get to D.C. Maybe not somewhat. The warfighter voice is drowned out the closer you get to D.C. And there's people that think they're smarter. There's priorities that creep in. There's equities that have to be adjudicated. And I get that. I realize that...

that it's a complex world and there is an enormous amount of priorities that need to be serviced, everything from homeland defense to the geographical combatant commands to the functional combatant commands to the whole nation and the other instruments of national power. I get it.

But when your president says, when four presidents in a row say, this is the priority, then we have got to follow that statement with the resourcing. And the resourcing just simply hasn't been there. I had the great fortune, as you and I did, we worked for Harry Harris. We worked for Admiral Davidson. We got to work for Lung Aquilino. And I certainly got to work alongside Paparo and Kaler and Snyder and all the people that mattered. These are the commanders that are tasked to win.

These are the commanders that read those documents and say, I am the priority. We are the priority. This effort is the priority. And therefore, these are the things that we need to do to win. So, you know, there's two ways this nation changes, Mike Minahan's opinion. You know, we can have an incredible failure, December 8th, September 12th.

You know, we're really good after the failure on aligning the things that matter. But how can we move left of that and get to a position where we are tackling the things that need to be tackled and not going to go down the, you know, the MacArthur quote of too late. So that's where I'm at. And I think the closer you get to D.C., the more challenging it is. And I understand it's a complex arena, but I also go at your job, figure it out. We've got to fund this. We've got to resource it. We've got to get the commanders for what they need. Well, probably the most challenging

famous moment in General Minahan's career was a time when you were raising the alarm, but you were raising it to your own commanders. You wrote a letter when you took command in 2022 at Air Mobility Command, and you said, we are not ready to fight and win inside the first island chain. And somehow that got into the media.

and generated a lot of buzz. Well, in part because you basically said, I think we need to be ready to fight by 2025 and checking my Mickey Mouse watch, it happens to be 2025. Tell me about that letter. What drove you to write that letter? And what was the environment like after you wrote that letter? Yeah, we called the memo. It was really an order. I had been in the command long enough to have...

been championing the priority. You know, and I was hired into Air Mobility Command because of who I am and because of my time in the Pacific, you know, 10 years, 10 years of my career is in the Pacific. Two tours in Korea, two tours in Indo-PACOM and a tour at PACAF. And so I was reminded that doesn't make me a foreign policy expert, but it does make me an expert on being the recipient of foreign policy. And I'll just let you do the math on that. Going back to one of the questions.

But I know how to go fast, and I know how to get teams ready. And it was very clear to me the second I got into Air Mobility Command and when it came time to issue that order that there was just an enormous amount of work to do. So at that time, I knew that my message as –

consistent as it had been, as strong as it had been, still needed to get to amp up a lot. I needed to pierce all the way down to the newest and the lowest levels within the command. I need to focus a team that was working their butts off for Ukraine and they didn't know it yet, but soon to be Israel, that we were going into moving this enormous exercise for the first time into the Pacific. And I knew I needed to get it up. So get it up a notch. We had

I considered, I wrote the letter. I wrote the memo. It was my order. I didn't staff it. I had a few trusted folks. I thought long. I wrote it and sat on it for two months.

for, you know, trying not to be reckless in how it went out. I thought about the method in which I sent it. I thought about every word in it and everything in there is incredibly intentional, including putting it out on the nipper net with a classification of for official use only or CUI, whatever that stands for, the new official use only, including running it through the

the classification office to make sure that we had it classified right. I did not. I did not think it would get leaked. There are some out there that have said, you're being cutesy on that. You absolutely knew it was going to leak. I didn't think it would leak, but I knew 100% it was going to be a hot potato.

So, you know, I fired it out and it wasn't too many minutes later where the feedback started going rolling in because someone stripped off the, you know, whoever did it stripped off the classification on it and then posted it on a, on social media. So it was intended to resonate with the, with the youngest and newest members of our team. It was intended to get the, the commanders responsible for carrying out my actions to

of the authorities and delegation of trust that I could give. It was designed for me to account for the risk and for me to own the risk that I was wanting them to take. And it was designed for peak action for the mobility guardian. And it was a message to the headquarters too. It was a message to the headquarters again, even though they had to work with me daily. You know,

to pierce the bureaucracy, pierce the status quo, pierce the frozen middle, pierce all the things that hamper action when it gets to supporting the warfighters and the pointy end. And so all of that came together. What was it like? I got immediate feedback from the highest levels.

I walked home that night. You've not lived until you go home that evening and your wife's sitting in the TV chair and you say, I think I'm going to be relieved of command in a few hours. And of course, my wife is amazing. And she looked at me and she said, you like to stand too close to the fire. And I'm on your, I got your back all the time. Just incredible.

So, but here's, here's what I learned. So I, you know, that was turbulent. It was turbulent for me for months and, and somewhat, I mean, here we are years later, still talking about it, but here, here's, here's where I'm at. Um, I was asked to rescind the letter, the memo on the order. I did not.

There were eight others that followed it. Now, those had to go on the secret network because of the amount of turmoil that came with that first one. But there were eight others that followed it that were equally poignant, equally deliberate in delegating authorities, delegating me owning the risk, being very exact on what I wanted. But here's what I learned. I learned I was right.

Okay. I don't back, I don't back off from that mental. I regret that it was leaked and it caused some uncomfortableness to the people that I respect, but I don't, I don't regret it. I learned something. Certainly there's 100%. I don't walk away from any event in my life where I don't work, learn something.

I instantly knew who my friends were. The amount of support and the people that backed me up instantly was incredible. And then in a spiritual way, and this was all lifted off of me on day three. I mean, the weight of this, you know, when you wake up and your name's in the Drudge Report and you're on the front page of the Washington Post and you're getting called from the people I was getting called by, you know, those make your tummy hurt. But it was released from me because if this was a way

for divine intervention to get me closer to my dad, who's got some health things that we're working through. Then I was like, so be it. And so the, so it, it, it, it took the burden off my heart, took the burden off my soul. And I just, you know, I just trudged forward saying I'm going to be the commander till I'm not. And we're going to get things done. Somebody, some people think I own stock in a Chinese balloon company. I don't, but that balloon certainly I had it described as an Irish kiss.

You know, came out about four days later, you know, where we had, you know, this this speaks to the permissive environment that China has, you know, they're flying balloons over our country and we can't stop them and we tolerate it and we tolerate it. So, you know, that was that was a thing that softened a bit. But at the end of the day, I was held accountable at the end of the day that.

That order generated everything I needed it to and more. And at the end of the day, if it came down to it, I wouldn't do it anything differently. And if that meant costing me my job, then so be it. There's plenty of other people that that could have filled the job. And, you know, that's certainly part of the reason I'm got a beard and a civilian now and I'm not still wearing a uniform. All right. Let's let's talk a minute about, you know, from your long experience in the Pacific, you worked closely with our allies.

And currently there's a question among our allies about the reliability of the U.S. and how we're going to treat them and what their responsibilities are. From your long experience dealing with our allies, what should they be doing to work better with us? What should we be asking them for? Yeah, you're right. So I've been fortunate enough to be stationed in Germany. I've been fortunate enough to have two tours in Korea. I've been fortunate enough to do numerous tours

tours in CENTCOM, deployed, working alongside incredible partners and allies. And that is America's asymmetrical advantage. It's probably not even asymmetrical. It's our main advantage is the partners and allies. At the military level, which is the level I know, there is incredible stability, always, always. And so I can go back to

You know, all you know, the interactions with the Philippines, you know, with some when some of the political things were were were raging during our time in Indo-Pacom, all the way back to my time, two tours in Korea, you know, both about 10 years, both tours about 10 years apart, incredibly different political circumstances yet.

Yet at the military level, the commander level, to go into the country and sit at the ops table, the planning table, the execution table, and work side by side in planning and execution, there is just incredible stability there. So I think those relationships are still strong. I'm not worried about partners and allies and allies.

and a, and a dismantling of that. I think there's incredible value in meeting tree obligations. I think there's incredible value in shared investment in the things that drives military readiness and all of the readiness that's needed in the, in the military, in the, in the instruments of national power. So I, I'm always optimistic. I'm always in awe of America's partners and allies, uh,

um, to get together and not just do ops together, but have ops that are led by different, uh, by different nations. And they always execute wonderfully and they're always very effective. So I think I I'm always an optimistic on this. There's incredible stability there. And I don't think that will ever change. When, so I want to go back to what is it exactly that we need to do? Um, so you're, you're, you're, uh,

He's had time to think your LinkedIn, uh, post ends with, I beg you Lima Foxtrot golf. And we won't translate that, uh, into English, uh, because of our, our, uh, our PG rating, but, um,

What is it that we need to go do? And I want to specifically focus this in on what are the investments that America needs to make into its air mobility force? Because ultimately, you know, three years in the seat at Air Mobility Command, there's only so much a commander gets to do. You don't get to actually go out, you know, you have to cook the meal. You don't get to go pick the groceries, right? So what is it that America should be shopping for at the supermarkets?

Okay, I'll give you top three. And I actually have a letter, op-ed, whatever it's going to be written for the new Secretary of the Air Force. I don't think he's been confirmed yet, but we'll see when that happens. But the first thing we need to stop doing is saying great power competition. And we got to start saying we're going to deter and if necessary, decisively defeat China and anybody else. I mean, it has to be that clear. We cannot be ambiguous about

and overly intellectual on stuff like great counter power competition. I don't know what it means. I don't think partners and allies know what it means. I certainly know airmen don't know what it means. So we need to be incredibly focused. That was, that was part of the, part of the, the direct messaging in my memo and, and, and order is you have to be precise about,

on mission and timeline. You cannot be ambiguous on both, okay? It's gotta be more precise than fight tonight, and it's gotta be more precise than it's gonna happen in five or 10 years. It doesn't mean we make stuff up, but it means that we have to have tension and precision that commanders and airmen can relate to. So let's get this effort called something that is meaningful. Step number one. Step number two, I already discussed.

get in a planning room and figure us out. If this were going to go down tomorrow, all right, I would, I would, if I were at the head of the table, I would say, show me what we're going to do. If the A2 walked in there tomorrow and said, they're loading amphibs, show me, show me exactly what we're going to do. Okay. And then once you've described what you actually can do,

And you compare that to what you have to do, that gap is filled forever.

by the investments. And it's not just investments in toys. It could be investment in concepts. It could be investment in how much risk do we take? It could be investment on how do we forward position forces. It could be investments on bringing in other teammates. It could be investments in more robust planning that involves not just the joint team, but the whole of government, whole of nation type things.

And so, you know, what you want to come at the end of that day, you want to come with a extremely holistic approach that gets after what this nation needs to be successful. OK, and then, you know, since you teased it, I'll talk about the investments that we need in terms of in terms of in terms of kit. The first thing I would invest in is connectivity.

connectivity for the mobility force. You've got an entire force out there that has more capability in their phone and in their car than they do in their airplane. Okay. That is inexcusable. That is inexcusable. When you get in your car or when you get on your phone, you have beyond line of sight, secure communication. And for the most part, when you get in our airplanes, you don't.

So we need to fix that instantly. Connectivity is the single biggest contributor to survivability. The single biggest contributor that the joint force can have is that mobility is not just doing airlift, air refueling, air medical evacuation and global air mobility support. It's also your mobile hotspot. It's also your furnisher of situational awareness. It's also providing you

power projection in terms of information and decision advantage. I thought the F-35 was supposed to be all that. Yeah, but if the F-35 can only fly its own tank of gas and can't get to where it needs to get, then it's tethered to, you know, that single tank of gas and it can't get forward. And so, you know, imagine an F-35 that takes off that has to, you know, that, that, that

that has to get further information than what it certainly can do it, but it's only doing it for self and it's not doing it for the whole joint team. And I'm talking about impacts beyond just the formation. I'm talking impacts that get after, you know, very, very aspirational thoughts. I'll give you an example. What if you had the right link and instead of needing an AWACS, you just needed someone in the back of a C-17 with the right apps that could do battle management?

We don't have AWACS. The E7 isn't going to be here anytime soon. And now you have a means to control battles both in a traditional way and a maneuver battle management way that are incredibly meaningful.

So, you know, the fighters just don't have the legs, don't have the extension, can't extend the power without this capability also being a mobility. So there's another example. Let me give you some others. We need to, you know, we came up with concepts at Air Mobility Command called Next Generation Air Refueling Systems or NGAS and Next Generation Airlift, which we called NGAL, where you look at,

um, airlift and rare refueling as a system instead of just one airplanes instead of just one size fits all. So think about a small fleet of tankers that could be, have stealth like qualities, not stealth, but stealth like qualities that could go forward with NGAD F 35, F 22, whatever, and be extremely risk reduced because of their signature. And then what if you had a middle fleet that could handle the weapons engagement zone? That's of moderate,

And then you had a fleet that looks a lot like it looks today, which handles the threat zone, which is fairly benign. What if you had the same approach when it came to airlift? So concepts like automation, where you can have a pilot or maybe just one pilot, but you could also have none. How about concepts like automation?

conventional takeoff and landing and an electrical vertical takeoff and landing that, that is, uh, uh, that is a diversification of fuel, whether it's hydrogen or electricity, and we can do operations that are runway agnostic and not require, uh, reliant on JP eight. Those are, those are pretty cool things. What if we had tankers that were run by companies like Omega that could, uh,

that are taking the tankers out of the boneyard and putting them in the low-threat areas so that the other tankers could go forward and do the active-duty guard and reserve tankers could go forward and do that. Those are concepts that are real. Let's pick on the C5s. The C5, on its best day, is a 46% chance of taking off. Hold on. Hold on.

So let's, let's partner with commercial companies like Colson that can take that capability, amp it to where it needs to be and deliver something more meaningful than 46%. You

So there are companies out there. There are technologies out there that we need to grip now and pay for now. They're low cost. So I think I got your answer. I mean, I got three things right off the bat. There's plenty more to do, but go ahead. Now it's your turn. All right. So the question is, how did we get here, right? So if I get on a plane and fly to Asia like I'm going to do in about a week and a half, I have –

At least some capability to communicate for that entire flight. I got Wi-Fi, the planes talking to satellites. Are you saying that we don't even have that right now for our airlift fleet? We do not have in the majority of our fleet what I would describe as the necessary secure beyond line of sight comms in greater than 90% of the fleet.

So think about there are things that communicate, but they don't have the bandwidth to deliver the data. We might not. The Air Force doesn't pay for the subscriptions to use it. The systems may be unclassified. So think about the same systems that the airlines use to communicate. Think about how many times you see a news report on where a U.S. military airplane is in Bagram or in.

or carrying the president or doing some big move because all of those systems are very open to anybody that wants to pay for a website subscription and get it. So when I talk about the mobility fleet being the most reliable, it's also the most vulnerable. And it's for reasons like that. So this secure beyond line of sight, get systems that can't be tracked, get systems that deliver security,

The upload rates and the download rates. Get systems that give you all the secure methods to encrypt.

Give our crew systems. So instead of doing all this hardware upgrade that requires big modifications to airplanes, let's just do apps and programs and treat it like, hey, when I need to go secure, you know, I pull up the equivalent of Signal or WhatsApp in the airplane. And now I'm communicating very efficiently and effectively at the rates needed to be meaningful. And I'm not worried about whether the bad guys can see it or read it or not. Or Jeffrey Goldberg. Yeah. Especially him.

So what you're describing is part of the problem in the Pentagon as a whole, which is procurement and the reluctance to work with leading tech, non-prime contractors. Is that what you're seeing? Yep. I absolutely see that. And frankly, I'm concerned that, you know, what was the news about Boeing this morning when I woke up?

You know, that the RVS 2.0 for the KC-46 is delayed until 2027, you know, and, you know, so here we are in a position where the big primes can't deliver on time aspects at cost. Let me, let me, let me say that slower.

Our major producers of American capabilities can no longer deliver on time at specs at cost. And we have got to fix that. We have got to stop using COVID. We've got to stop using supply chain. We have got to stop using all the things that are thrown out as reasons to be

You know, over time, over cost and under, under, you know, the level needed to deliver at specs. So, yet I'm concerned there's a heavy voice.

in DC for those companies to continue to get more and more of the business without being held accountable to their previous actions. So we need our primes to be successful. I'm not knocking the primes here. When it comes to... For our investors, the prime contractors, the big prime contractors, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, these guys who have basically...

controlled most of the major defense expenditures for the U.S. military for decades.

Yeah, I don't work for a prime. I'm not knocking the primes. When it comes to industry, it's a relationship. Just like every other part of our life, there's very rare do you have an opportunity where it's never your fault. It's the relationship. So in describing this relationship, we've got to get in the building. We've got to get in the Pentagon. We've got to get into the acquisition process. We've got to throw it away.

We don't need to give it more power. We don't need to give it more authority. We don't need to give it more general officers. We need to streamline it and trim it and orient it on exactly where we're at. And here's where we are. I don't care if you agree with what I threw out with 2025. 2027, let's just say there may be something in five years. If you knew that,

and believed that something was going to happen in the Pacific in five years, you would want to put this country on a footing

That is, that should be incredibly effective and efficient and getting our war fighters, the things that they need to be successful on the battlefield. That is the only shot we have to deter. And that is the only shot stood needed that we have to decisively defeat. So, you know, think about everybody's read the book freedoms forge, right? You know, there's just a force of personality that put this country in a logistical supply situation.

manufacturing place to be successful, but it took an incredibly forceful personality to do that. Okay. And where is that personality right now driving that? Where is the personality that is knitting together the supply chain industry and the military? Where is the personality that's fixing acquisitions? Where is the personality that's going to take a different risk

acceptance model when it comes to doing these things. Where is the personality that's going to venture out beyond the primes and get after those hungry young companies that are incredibly patriotic, that are trying to deliver capability for this country and are being incredibly patient with a system that is oriented on moving slow and

and moving dysfunctionally. So it's going to take somebody to move in and plow into these things to orient all this, and it's going to happen one way or the other. It's either going to happen in advance and we'll all look good and hopefully never need the investments that were put in, or it's going to happen on the other end of something that happened very bad. And I'll end on this one.

We should never put the president in a position where he is constrained or she is constrained by not having a military that's ready to decisively defeat. They should never walk in to a decision in handling a crisis where

near peer adversary, whatever it is, and say, we're not going to fight because we're not ready. That was the source of my memo. That is the readiness we need to drive. And that is the reform that needs to happen. I hate to even call it acquisition reform because I think it needs to be thrown out and started over. But that is the type of approach that we need to take when it comes to delivering these capabilities to the warfighter. And I lied. I got one last thing.

The warfighter voice needs to be the loudest voice in the room on all of this. The warfighter voice, the commanders that are charged to win, the soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, guardian, Coast Guardian that's downrange doing America's work, that voice needs to be the loudest in the conversation. Our current Secretary of Defense says he is doing that. Follow the money.

I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic. And I'll follow the money. You know, that's the key here. I think we have a unique opportunity with the disruptive nature, you know, that's built in to really, you know, not only make up for lost time, but to put this, you know, put this country militarily in a position where we can definitively walk into the president and say, you know,

Mr. President, all options are on the table. We can decisively win. And of course, it's up to up to our civilian leaders as to whether they use it or not. But but the decision won't be handcuffed by a doubt on the military's capability. All right. I'm going to ask you about 73 aircraft. This is a quote from General Admiral Paparo saying how many aircraft it took to move a single Patriot battery to the Middle East. Seventy three.

That sounds incredible. Why does it take 73 aircraft to move a single Patriot battery? Yep. Hey, the joint force is heavy. You know, that's not, it was not a surprise to me. I was happy he said it.

I'm a big fan of Admiral Papparo and his congressional testimony over the last two or three weeks is incredibly powerful. I implore your, your listeners to, you know, I list, I, I listened to things on 2.0 speed for whatever reason, I've got the, I've got the brain that can, can hang with it. But I mean, when you, when you just hit 2.0 speed testimony goes pretty quick. It's the way I read books too, but you know, I really do orient on the testimony season and,

um on the hill when it comes to the services and the combatant commanders in our our uh our political appointees i think there's an enormous amount of insight in there so 73 not surprising to me i've been moving the joint force my whole career okay when we were in indo pay common handling covid and needed to bring a small portion of an army field hospital forward it was 47 c17s

OK, so and this is you know, this is going back a little bit to why I wrote the order and the memo is I watched what happened in the aftermath of the Afghanistan attack.

and the evacuation out of Kabul. I know what it took to get the firepower to Ukraine. I know what it took to race the capabilities for Israel and America's joint force deployed in the Middle East. We are incredibly heavy and we are 80% oriented

on the mainland of the U.S., the continental United States. So if we're going to project power, if we're going to communicate will, deny benefit, impose a cost, and put that deterrence lens on, if we're going to show that we can actually handle the tyrannies of distance and the tyranny of water, then we got to get better at this. Okay? So it's not just how many C-17s that it takes to move a Patriot battery. It's about, are the Patriot batteries ready to move?

Can we get out there in a week, vice a month?

Can we do all the things necessary? So when I talk about my problem statements, and you mentioned one, we're not ready to fight and win inside the first island chain. The second problem I always said is we are not ready, integrated, or agile as a joint force. And that is a direct comment of my experience across those operational vignettes that I keep referring to, from Afghanistan to Ukraine to Israel to Niger to Gaza, all the things, okay? We are not

Ready, integrated, agile when it comes to the speed needed to deter and decisively defeat. And that's the problem set we're continuing to try to work. Let me just ask, because this will be the active crown. So, you know, we have a lot of listeners in Asia. What would you tell them, given what you just said? I would use a phrase. I would piggyback on a phrase that Admiral Paparo uses.

He said a phrase, we're ready, but I will never bit to being ready enough. And that's exactly what I would say here. But I would apply it to my whole ready, integrated, agile. We are certainly better. We came out at the end of my three-year tenure. I'm telling you, I stand by this statement too. We can fight and win inside the first island chain, but it needs to be overwhelming.

It needs to be, you know, we need to continue to expand the advantage. The same thing when it comes to the readiness, the integration, and the agility. And we demonstrate that daily. We demonstrate that daily. Our ability to project hope, to project power,

All of that is demonstrated on a daily basis, but it doesn't ever mean I'll be satisfied. It doesn't ever mean I won't advocate for all the things I've advocated for here. And it doesn't mean that we should ever let our foot off the gas. So there's always room for improvement. And as I see exercises like Bamboo Eagle and I see exercises like

What the Air Force and the Joint Force are going to do in the Pacific this summer. All those things are very good and very necessary steps. We just need to make sure that they're hard enough, that they're aspirational enough, and that they are certainly inclusive of all of our partners and allies, which I know that they are. But I would never let my foot off the pedal when it comes to the aggressiveness of those type of things to just to continue to grind on what's

readiness, integration, and agility. All right. Well, from your lips to Congress's ears, I hope. We thank you for joining us today, General Mike Minahan. Again, call sign MINI. You're certainly never boring. And thank you for keeping that spirit alive for our podcast today. And we hope we'll have you again on soon. All right. Nice to see you all again. And then nice to meet your listeners.

And our sponsor, of course, is Bauer Group Asia, a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific. They apply unmatched expertise and experience to help clients navigate the world's most complex and dynamic markets. My co-host, Jim Caruso, is a senior advisor with Bauer Group, and you can visit them at their website at bauergroupasia.com. Jim, Mike Minahan is never boring.

Oh, never boring. No, you can't be accused of that. And from my time at Indo pay comm Mike Minahan is what? Six, five, six, six, and a big man with a big personality. And when we'd have visitors coming in from Asia and Asian people tend to be shorter and more quiet. It was like a Yogi bear and boo-boo, but it was great. Cause he is, he is so positive. He's a positive force.

and got things done. Yeah, I know. I mean, the staff at Indo-PACOM, I remember, just loved him. He was, of course, during most of my time there, I knew him as the director of staff, and they loved to work for him. And, of course, in the Air Force, especially in the flying community, everybody has call signs, and his call sign was

was guaranteed from the beginning. He was always going to be mini just based on what you just said. Absolutely. He's great. You know, as I said, airlift is, in a lot of ways, it's boring, right? It's the stuff. Nobody wants to talk about logistics. Everybody wants to make movies about fighter planes. Nobody wants to talk about the things that it takes to get the fighter plane to where it needs to be. But that's the big fours.

Exactly. I mean, and that really, I mean, you know, when I was coming up in the Air Force, you know, one of the things that we would always study is, was the Berlin Airlift, right? You know, and actually that won the peace in 1947. It was what we needed to get through the blockade of Berlin. And I think what he's talking about, you know, there's questions whether we could do something similar today if it was a blockade of Taiwan. Well.

Well, and given our adversaries, especially in Asia, don't have the same logistical tyranny of distance problems that many described, at least not to the same extent, they come in with a huge advantage, which makes it even more important for our allies to be prepared to help and provide assistance. And for us to pre-position things, there's a whole lot going on. It gets to what Domeni was saying. Careful planning and identifying the gaps is what would get us through. Yeah.

Well, the thing that I kept sort of trying to tease out of him there was ultimately this is a military problem, but it's not something the military can solve on its own. It needs Congress. It needs Congress to do its job and look at what we have today in the United States and recognize that it's just not going to do what it needs to do unless they appropriate the funds and demand the results.

Well, not to defend Congress, but you know every branch of the military is screaming about what they need. The Navy now is down a bunch of ships. So the president announces we're going to have more ships and new shipyards. Where's that money going to come from? Is it going to come from logistics? A lot of demands in the economy that is slowing and a bunch of deficits that's rising. Wow.

I blame you. You know, I hate to say it, but cry me a river. I mean, we don't want to find out about all this stuff after, again, as Manny said, we all find out about it when it's too late, which frankly, unfortunately, is the way we often do find out about these things. We find out on December 8th, as he would say, so.

All right. Well, we want to thank Minnie for being with us. And we want to thank our producer, Ian Ellis Jones and IEJ Media for his great production capabilities. I was just on a podcast yesterday and I was asked by the host, how do you guys do what you do? And I say, our producer. And you can follow him and see a lot of his other work at Ian Ellis Jones on X.

If you enjoyed this episode, of course, we want you to stop, stop, stop right now. Wait, stop. Okay. Now subscribe, like, hit those buttons. We need you. That helps us get the word out. Of course, if you are listening to us, you can watch us on YouTube at youtube.com at IP podcast. We're on all the audio services. And of course, you can see us on social media. We're on X, we're on LinkedIn, we're on Blue Sky.

Finally, you can email us. You can email us at indopacificpodcast at gmail.com. And we want to thank our great sponsor, Bauer Group Asia. Please visit their website at bauergroupasia.com. For Jim and Ian, I'm Ray. Until next time, thank you for listening to Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific?