Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz has assigned Maj. Gen. Lawrence Wells to take command of 9th Air Force at Shaw AFB, S.C. He succeeds Maj. Gen. Stephen Hoog, who’s been in charge of 9th AF since last August. Wells comes to Shaw from Yongsan Army Garrison, South Korea, where he’s been deputy chief of staff for United Nations Command and US Forces Korea since July 2009. He is a command pilot with more than 2,500 flight hours in aircraft such as the F-16, KC-10, and U-2. (DOD release)
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…