So, apparently the author of this article works for the Pentagon, and was attempting to blow the whistle on US efforts to push towards a war with China. There's a recent Washington Post article about it here.
He also wrote this article shortly before, which is worth a read.
Until the US successfully "decouples" from China (see you in a couple decades), war will be impossible because it would immediately lead to the complete collapse of the economy. That would do far more to accelerate the end of US power than China's current trajectory. It is the worst case scenario for American power.
On the grand scale, America has already lost. China is ascendant and the US will settle for second place, because its only alternatives are:
A) traditional war with China, which would be out of character for the US for a number of reasons. The US does not go to war with major powers. It does not go to war with nuclear armed countries. Not only would it be breaking these two extremely reliable historical trends, but it would be entirely obliterating its own economy immediately.
B) Nuclear annihilation, which is a lot worse than second place, including for the people in power.
The fearmongering over an actual, direct military conflict with China is completely unfounded based on a total misunderstanding of either the way the US military operates or the function of the global economy. I will very confidently state this: barring a dramatic change in the ruling philosophies and economic modes of one or both countries, there will not be a war between the US and China in the next few decades.
At the very most, you could get some proxy wars, but China simply does not care to engage in those the way the USSR did in Vietnam, Korea, etc.
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