Gen. Milley secretly promised China he’d warn them before a US attack

During multiple secret phone calls, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley promised China’s top general that he would warn the communist nation of an impending attack from the United States, according to a new book by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

According to excerpts first revealed Tuesday from the forthcoming book entitled “Peril,” as reported by the Washington Post, the first phone call took place on Oct. 30, 2020, just four days before the presidential election between then-President Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The second call took place on Jan. 8, 2021, two days after the storming of the United States Capitol.

“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley told the People’s Liberation Army general. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.”

“General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time,” Milley added. “It’s not going to be a surprise.”

According to the authors, Li trusted Milley enough to take him at his word after the first call, but was more resistant in the second call.

“We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine,” Milley assured the Chinese general. “But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.” <Source>

Gen. Mark Milley: Russian woes in Ukraine should be a lesson for China on Taiwan

The Pentagon’s top general said China should carefully consider how poorly Russia is faring so far in its military operation against Ukraine as it contemplates any amphibious assault on Taiwan.

“War on paper is a whole lot different than real war,” Gen. Milley told reporters at the Pentagon. “When blood is spilled and people die and real tanks are being blown up, things are a little bit different.”

He noted that China hasn’t faced an enemy on the battlefield since the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979. Beijing would be playing “a very dangerous game” if it attempts a crossing of the Taiwan Strait, Gen. Milley said. “They don’t have the experience [or] the background to do it. They haven’t trained to [do] it yet,” he said.

[OCS: Typically, politicians and diplomats are the ones to issue warnings, not active duty generals playing to the media – which changes the tone and nature of the remarks.] 

China had a largely infantry-based army with few heavy combat tanks in its inventory when Gen. Milley was commissioned in 1980.

“And then they got rich,” he said, adding that Beijing’s explosive economic growth in recent years has allowed China to “buy a military.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping recently reaffirmed that Beijing preferred the “peaceful reunification” of Taiwan but explicitly refused to rule out military action.

“They believe that it’s their day in the sun. They believe it’s, once again, time for the ‘Middle Kingdom’ to be No. 1,” Gen. Milley said. “That’s what they’re shooting for, and we are not going to allow that to happen.”

Even as it continues to pour billions of dollars of security assistance into Ukraine, Gen. Milley acknowledged that the U.S. considers China the nation’s pacing threat. Beijing is the one country in the world that has the diplomatic, military and economic power to pose a significant challenge to the United States.

[OCS: Security assistance, my ass. We are funding the military-industrial complex in a conflict that the State Department and CIA created.

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs “Toria” Nuland was the “mastermind” behind the Feb. 22, 2014 “regime change” in Ukraine, plotting the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych while convincing the ever-gullible U.S. mainstream media that the coup wasn’t really a coup but a victory for “democracy.” <Source>

We see billions of dollars unaccountably wash through Ukraine – and as we have allegedly seen, some $40 million being diverted back to the Democrat Party through the bankrupt FTX scam.]

China has also stepped up military exercises around Taiwan, in part to protest the recent visit to the island by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in August, the highest-ranking U.S. official to travel to Taipei in a quarter-century.

“China is not shy about their goal. They want to be equal to or superior militarily to the United States,” Gen. Milley said. “They’re working on that very, very hard.”

While an amphibious assault might be beyond China’s military abilities in the near term, Beijing is capable of dropping bombs and launching missiles at Taiwan, Gen. Milley said.

“Attacking and seizing the island of Taiwan across the straits, putting troops on the island of Taiwan, that is a very difficult military task to do,” he said. “I think it’ll be some time before the Chinese have the military capability and they’re ready to do it.”

[OCS: For a “face-conscious nation like China, comments such as these can be interpreted as provocative challenges that may trigger some display or demonstration of force. Possibly, a near-kinetic action in the disputed waters of the South China Sea near China’s artificial islands? Or additional challenge sorties by an enemy air force testing the limits of Taiwan’s ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone), potentially leading to an accident? Or, on the other hand, possibly inspiring overconfidence in the situation, which may lead to a lack of readiness to respond to provocative actions?]

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