Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz was on hand as India inducted the first of six C-130Js into its mobility fleet. During the Feb. 5 ceremony, Schwartz presented Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony a model of the Super Hercules and visited with airmen at Hindon Air Force Station near New Delhi where the aircraft will be housed, according to a USAF release. India is expected to receive all six aircraft—purchased as part of a $1.2 billion US foreign military sale—by the end of 2011. (See also Lockheed Delivers India’s First C-130J from the Daily Report archive)
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…