Rumsfeld Sees a New China: If press reports are accurate, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has changed his attitude—or approach—toward China’s increased defense spending. According to several news reports covering a meeting of Asian defense ministers, Rumsfeld indicated he believes Beijing is making more visible the scope of its military endeavors. That stands in marked contrast to Rumsfeld’s claim last year that China was upsetting regional stability, not to mention, the recently released Pentagon report on China.
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has two new squadrons of F-35s at its disposal in Alaska just as “quite a bit of action” has taken place in the combatant command’s area of responsibility and the “advanced threats” there are becoming “more lethal,” said the squadrons’ wing commander, Col. David J. Berkland. Berkland’s…