Officials at JB Charleston S.C., are preparing for a complete refurbishment of the 9,000-foot main runway that the base shares with Charleston International Airport. “Last year we finished off the secondary runway, and this year we received word that we will be getting full funding for the refurbishment of the primary runway no later than November,” said Col. Martha Meeker, 628th Air Base Wing commander, reported Charleston’s Post and Courier. The nine-month, $50 million project will be the first time that the main runway is totally redone since its construction in the 1940s. Workers will replace the concrete, which runs 18 inches deep, while reducing runway width to 150 feet to meet current Air Mobility Command parameters. Civil and military traffic will shift to the base’s slightly shorter 7,000-foot runway in the interim, limiting disruption. Charleston is home to the Air Force’s largest C-17 force.
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…