1) >They fully understand how to build them now. I was of the impression it was more an operations issue, in that there wasn't insight into many of the design

1) >They fully understand how to build them now. I was of the impression it was more an operations issue, in that there wasn't insight into many of the design decisions that they were copying. They're iterating on the design with some experience now, and as you said, they'll have real, useable carriers soon... But is there reason to believe they've really improved and figured out carrier ops? Let alone tactics, support/logistics, force-projection, or whatever other strategic uses they intend to pursue? 2) I didn't intend to make a political statement, just a hypothetical of "What would an art-of-war destabilizing campaign look like?" I obviously share many of your concerns, but even if most of that is true, I don't necessarily think a declining society will weaken the country militarily, at least not initially. If anything the US military is good at training and making use of people of all beliefs/ political leanings/ levels of intelligence/ etc. As long as technology is roughly on par, and the money printing presses run, the military will do fine. The political and civilian side of the (non-DOD) government, however, is an entirely different question. 3) >this is how you get so many Republicans supporting $2,000 stimulus checks Partially and/or maybe. But there's an alternative, conservative-consistent reasoning, in that mandatory shut-downs constitute a government taking (or even expropriation) under the law, and therefore "victims" should be compensated. In practice, the SBA and PPP programs had this more of that type of structure, while of course the stimulus checks were done as a social welfare program. But also, yes, there are many "conservatives" that seem to approve of populist social programs now. It'll be interesting to see the ultimate party/policies realignment.