If I have to be totally honest, the US military is probably too small for its political goals. Definitely in terms of keeping production and replenishment lines

If I have to be totally honest, the US military is probably too small for its political goals. Definitely in terms of keeping production and replenishment lines open [1]. But even for things like aircraft carriers, I don't think 11 aircraft carriers [2] are enough to achieve air superiority in Chinese littoral waters. Another point is that US military tactics are highly reliant on the US maintaining a technological superiority over its opponents. This means that weapon systems constantly have to be tossed out and replaced with newer variants as technology improves. And it's often cheaper to build from scratch than retrofit existing platforms to support new technology. [1] See the Russo-Ukrainian war, where both sides are running through things like artillery shells at something like 5-10× production rates. Even a short, "small" war consumes stockpiles ravenously. [2] The US has 11 aircraft carriers, but not all of them can be on active duty at the same time. The USN essentially runs 1 in active duty, 1 in reserve, and 1 in refit at any given time; I suspect the USN would struggle to even have 8 aircraft carriers in forward deployment at once, let alone concentrated in one active theater (don't forget, the US has commitments literally across the world that don't go away in war!).