Maj. Gen. Joseph Ryan is the Commanding General of the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division, based in Hawaii. He’s in the Philippines this week, meeting with some of his Asian counterparts and preparing for several weeks of scheduled military exercises with our allies in the region. He gave an interview to the Associated Press yesterday and seemed to fire a verbal broadside at China, declaring that America is “battle ready” and our allies will stand united if forced to do so by countries that have “decided they want to change the world order” in the western Pacific. This is the sort of blunt statement that usually leads to the Chinese Communist Party setting its hair on fire and probably making some of our allies in the region nervous as well.

American forces and their allies in Asia are ready for battle after years of joint combat exercises, a United States general said Wednesday, adding that Russia’s setbacks in Ukraine should serve as a warning to potential Asian aggressors like China and North Korea.

U.S. treaty allies like the Philippines, Japan and Australia, among others, “have shown that they will band together, that they will not stand for aggression from these nations that have decided they want to change the world order out here,” Maj. Gen. Joseph Ryan said.

Although Asia has no counterpart to NATO, the 30-nation military alliance whose mostly European members vow to defend each other against external attacks, a network of U.S. treaty alliances and defense partnerships upholding the international order provides a regional safeguard, he said.

At first glance, this might sound like the typical military attitude and an assurance from one of our top generals that the American military is ready to do their jobs. But at the same time, it also comes across as a saber-rattling, “red line in the sand” challenge to the CCP. That seemed to be confirmed when General Ryan followed up with the AP reporter by saying combat readiness exercises “hopefully would make potential aggressors think twice.”

If this were some sort of a dustup playing out on social media, this was the equivalent of Ryan saying, “f*** around and find out, Xi Jinping.”

“Does the backdrop of PRC aggression enter our minds when we train? Absolutely,” he said, and in the case of the Philippines, U.S. forces needed to be ready to fulfill their obligations under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.

“We feel duty-bound to ensure that the Philippines can maintain and will maintain their sovereignty,” Ryan said. “So aggression from the People’s Republic of China that makes our treaty ally uncomfortable makes us uncomfortable.”

So General Ryan is talking the talk. Now we have to make sure that we’re ready to walk the walk. Despite recent recruitment shortfalls, I have no doubt that our troops are ready to answer the call if the need arises and generals like Joseph Ryan are prepared to lead them. But we have also recently heard from leading military analysts who say that if a war with China were to break out, supply chain issues could lead to the United States running out of critical weapons and ammunition in a matter of weeks or possibly even days.

And the prospects for a military conflict in that region are far from being simply hypothetical at this point. We’ve already had one general openly predicting that we would be at war with China by 2025. And just this week we heard the Chinese threatening to “respond further” to the loss of their spy balloon off the coast of the Carolinas. Now, with one of our top generals in the Pacific theater openly discussing his readiness to start kicking ass and taking names if China crosses a red line, the saber-rattling is growing to deafening levels.

I’ll close with a suggestion for whoever in Washington is running this circus at the moment. Do you suppose we could find a way to close down the war in Europe with one of the other two largest nuclear military powers on the planet before we start lobbing rockets at the other one? Because that seems like it might be prudent. Thanks.