Ten F-35Bs will deploy to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, in January 2017, a Pentagon official confirmed Wednesday. The deployment, reported by the Kyodo news service, will be the first overseas deployment for the F-35B, the first squadron of which was declared operational in August 2015. Iwakuni is host to Marine Corps F/A-18 fighters, which will eventually be replaced by F-35Bs at the base. The deployment is part of a familiarization for both pilots and base ground crews. Further deployments to Iwakuni are expected later next year.
Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. may have moved on from Air Force Chief of Staff to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but he is keeping an eye on the Air Force’s effort to “re-optimize for great power competition”—and is pleased by what he sees. At a Defense Writers Group meeting March…