Woman Will Lead BMT Unit: The Air Force has announced it plans to install Col. Deborah Liddick as the new commander for the 737th Training Group, USAF’s basic military training unit at JBSA Lackland, Tex. USAF is in the midst of a full-scale review of its BMT operations, following charges of sexual misconduct by several military training instructors at Lackland. The service earlier this month sentenced one MTI to prison and has levied various punishments against other. Col. Eric Axelbank, head of Air Education and Training Command’s 37th Training Wing, which oversees the BMT mission, fired the group’s previous commander in August. Axelbank relinquished his command in early September to Col. Mark D. Camerer, who previously commanded the 436th Airlift Wing at Dover AFB, Del. According to an Associated Press report, Camerer said of Liddick, who has been serving as chief of the maintenance group at Luke AFB, Ariz., that he has “the utmost confidence in having Colonel Liddick take the reins of basic military training.” (AP report via mySanAntonio.com)
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…