Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) released a statement commending the Pentagon for its plan to construct 191 new family housing units at Whiteman Air Force Base near Knob Knoster and to make improvements to barracks at Ft. Leonard Wood. For the Whiteman project, Skelton, who heads the House Armed Services Committee, said the Pentagon would “dedicate an additional $37.5 million to build 191 new housing units and demolish 200 old housing units.” That is on top of a previously appropriated $74.6 million for Whiteman’s new housing project, he added. Skelton declared, “It has long been my goal to make Whiteman Air Force Base and Ft. Leonard Wood the premier military installations in the United States.”
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…