California 
Air National Guard rescuers from Moffett Federal Airfield last week evacuated and treated a merchant sailor who had suffered head trauma aboard a cargo ship 300 miles off the Mexican coast. “This is the third successful long-range, over-water mission we have executed within the past nine months,” said 129th Rescue Wing Commander Col. Steven Butow. One of the wing’s HH-60 helicopters, accompanied by an MC-130P special-mission aircraft, departed Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and reached the Marshall Islands-flagged vessel on Nov. 29, according to Moffett’s release. Pararescuemen winched down to the deck of the cargo ship and recovered the sailor, treating him on the two-hour return flight to Cabo San Lucas. There, the airmen loaded the patient on the MC-130P for transfer to San Diego for further medical treatment. “This was a complex rescue mission, but our airmen were up to the task,” said Butow. (Moffet report by Capt. Donnie LeBlanc)
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…