Chief 
of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said the Air Force is facing toughs decisions in dealing with its share of the anticipated $450 billion cut in defense spending for the Pentagon over the next 10 years. In order to protect its top modernization projects—the F-35 strike fighter “at an appropriate level,” a new bomber platform, and the KC-46A tanker—the Air Force will scale back other programs, Schwartz told This Week in Defense News, a CBS TV news show, in a segment airing on Dec. 11. “We will do less of other things in order to protect those programs,” said Schwartz. He noted that the Air Force is now at the point where further cuts would mean not only less depth in key mission areas, but also less capability. He said the service has not yet factored the effect of the much more severe defense cuts under the 2011 Budget Control Act’s sequestration clause. “We’ve only had a couple months to deal with the $450 billion number,” he said. “Then we’ll go to the next step.”
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…