Already the Defense Department’s largest library, Air University’s Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center at Maxwell AFB Ala., is slated for expansion this spring. The $13.4 million project will add 17,000 square feet of space, including a climate-controlled special collection room, cartographic research area, study rooms, and a computer lab. Workers will also upgrade the building’s entire climate control and ventilation systems, lighting, fire-protection systems, and additional infrastructure. Constructed in 1956 and renovated in 1984, FRIC boasts one of the most comprehensive aeronautical and military collections in the United States. Its vast archives include rare and classified material that serves military and civilian academics as well as students. Within the center’s archives are many items that “only Air University has copies of in the entire world,” noted Jeff Luzius, FRIC director. (Maxwell report by Kimberly L. Wright)
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…