: On Tuesday, the Obama Administration nominated Erin Conaton, who has served with the House Armed Services Committee since 2001, to become the undersecretary of the Air Force, a position that has been vacant since Ronald Sega left the post in August 2007. According to the White House press release, Conaton currently is committee staff director and previously served as the minority staff director and as a professional staff member covering a range of defense policy issues. Prior to that, she was the research staff director for DOD’s US Commission on National Security/21st Century, known as the Hart-Rudman Commission. She received a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III chaired a China-focused military briefing Oct. 27, part of a biweekly series of briefings with senior military commanders about China’s growing threat in the wake of an orbital hypersonic weapon test that elicited public worries from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “What we…