(Investor’s Business Daily) Despite the White House’s much-lauded pivot to the Pacific, the Navy’s Pacific commander warns that an increasingly hostile and assertive China threatens U.S. air and sea superiority in the region.
If jaws didn’t drop, they should have last week when Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, chief of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), said: “Our historic dominance that most of us in this room have enjoyed is diminishing, no question.”
U.S. naval and air superiority, particularly in the Pacific, has been taken for granted. But as Obama administration budget cuts and the effects of sequestration take their toll, our position is being severely challenged by a Chinese military benefiting from years of double-digit spending increases and a commitment from Beijing to push the U.S. out of the area.
