It's been 20 years since I retired from the Air Force and 40 years since I first entered Cheyenne Mountain, America's nuclear redoubt at the southern end of the Front Range that includes Pikes Peak in Colorado. So it was with some nostalgia that I read a recent memo from General Kenneth Wilsbach, the new Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF).
Many of the new capabilities on display are designed to allow China to project military power far from its shores, as Beijing vies to match US primacy in the Indo-Pacific. Among the debut weapons were long-range, powerful anti-ship missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, capable of carrying nuclear warheads worldwide. Some glitzy, high-tech systems also appeared in public for the first time.