The Joint Chiefs Chairman may have well saved American lives by making calls to his Chinese counterpart, Milley's calls thwarted a Chinese miscalculation in the closing weeks of the DJT administration. So for those calling for the head of General Mark Milley have it all wrong.
Milley spoke twice to his Chinese counterpart, General Li Zoucheng of the Peoples Liberation Army. Both times it was to caution General Li not to make terrible mistakes.
China claims control of 80% of the South China Sea, something the US and other nations reject. The result is the US Navy conducts fleet exercises in those waters or sail thru to demonstrate freedom of navigational rights.
The Chinese hate this, complain bitterly and yet accepts these are not acts of war.
But what if one day they concluded otherwise? What if they decided, because of a wide--ranging series of extreme circumstances, that a US destroyer steaming into the South China Sea was this time a part of a coordinated attack. They would believe that every second they failed to act only compounded the hazard to Chinese lives. They might sink it. The United States would be compelled to respond equally or by a greater measure. China might then do the same, and where would the violence end? Might there be war?
According to a new book titled "PERIL", written by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, the Chinese had intelligence in October 2020 that the US was planning such an attack. At the same time, POTUS Trump was engaging in ever more belligerence toward China.
Thats when Milley made the 1st call to Li, with whom he has a long working relationship, assuring him 4 days before the election that no US attack was coming.
The second call was two days after Trump provoked a mob into storming the US capitol to stop Congress from performing its constitutional duty of officially declaring Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
Is it any surprise Li and his officers were distressed at the sight of Trump supporters driving law makers out of the Capitol? That kind of attempt to dethrone our govt, even if for only a few hours, has never happened in the US and is inconceivable in totalitarian regimes like China.
How could the Chinese not worry what a desparate Trump might do next? As with the October call, Milley would have been remiss to not to prevent a Chinese error. "We are 100% steady.....Democracy can be sloppy sometimes, " Milley assured Li, according to the book.
"From all I can see today," said James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral and a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, "Milleys actions were within his remit to establish open lines of communication with friends and foes alike, avoid potential miscalculation, and maintain Military to Military stability during a very tense period."
Milley spoke twice to his Chinese counterpart, General Li Zoucheng of the Peoples Liberation Army. Both times it was to caution General Li not to make terrible mistakes.
China claims control of 80% of the South China Sea, something the US and other nations reject. The result is the US Navy conducts fleet exercises in those waters or sail thru to demonstrate freedom of navigational rights.
The Chinese hate this, complain bitterly and yet accepts these are not acts of war.
But what if one day they concluded otherwise? What if they decided, because of a wide--ranging series of extreme circumstances, that a US destroyer steaming into the South China Sea was this time a part of a coordinated attack. They would believe that every second they failed to act only compounded the hazard to Chinese lives. They might sink it. The United States would be compelled to respond equally or by a greater measure. China might then do the same, and where would the violence end? Might there be war?
According to a new book titled "PERIL", written by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, the Chinese had intelligence in October 2020 that the US was planning such an attack. At the same time, POTUS Trump was engaging in ever more belligerence toward China.
Thats when Milley made the 1st call to Li, with whom he has a long working relationship, assuring him 4 days before the election that no US attack was coming.
The second call was two days after Trump provoked a mob into storming the US capitol to stop Congress from performing its constitutional duty of officially declaring Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
Is it any surprise Li and his officers were distressed at the sight of Trump supporters driving law makers out of the Capitol? That kind of attempt to dethrone our govt, even if for only a few hours, has never happened in the US and is inconceivable in totalitarian regimes like China.
How could the Chinese not worry what a desparate Trump might do next? As with the October call, Milley would have been remiss to not to prevent a Chinese error. "We are 100% steady.....Democracy can be sloppy sometimes, " Milley assured Li, according to the book.
"From all I can see today," said James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral and a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, "Milleys actions were within his remit to establish open lines of communication with friends and foes alike, avoid potential miscalculation, and maintain Military to Military stability during a very tense period."
