Until Operation Unified Protector shuts down on Oct. 31, NATO will continue to run missions over Libya, principally intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance flights and enforcement of the no-fly zone and arms embargo, according to NATO’s air commander, Lt. Gen. Ralph Jodice. He told the Daily Report in an interview Monday that NATO aircraft performed their last “kinetic” mission in Libya on Oct. 20, but the alliance continues to be “prepared to protect civilians if they are so threatened.” Jodice said he’s been gratified that NATO partners and four other coalition members have contributed “everything they could” in manpower and hardware to the operation. It’s been “a big success,” he said. Despite complaints of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates that NATO partners were short of munitions, Jodice said weapons availability was never a problem. “I never once had to cancel or postpone a sortie because I didn’t have the right munitions,” he said.
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…