A new-build C-17 transport aircraft arrived last week at JB Charleston, S.C., giving the 437th Airlift Wing its 60th C-17. Charleston’s Post and Courier reported that Gen. Gary North, Pacific Air Forces commander, flew the aircraft to Charleston from Boeing’s C-17 assembly plant in Long Beach, Calif., on Feb. 3. The 437th AW operates Charleston’s C-17s in concert with Air Force Reserve Command’s 315th AW under an association. Charleston hosts USAF’s largest assembly of C-17s.
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…