On this date in 1942, we were down to one operational carrier in the South Pacific, the rest were on the bottom. We were hanging on by our teeth in Guadalcanal. We barely controlled the air and sea in the Solomons. That was the price of unpreparedness.
Fortunately, we had gotten lucky in a few places, and had been damned good in others. We had stopped the Japanese and would never turn back. We were learning the hard way that our damned torpedoes didn’t work. The limitations of our radar and the lack of night training had cost us badly against the IJN in night actions. We had already forfeited the Philippines because we weren’t ready.
We saw it again in Korea, after all we won WWII, no need for that pesky military spending. We were firing 1952 era mortar and artillery ammunition in Vietnam. Some of it didn’t work so very good. The price of freedom, the price of freedom. It gets higher every time we get complacent.
If it were up to you, I’d have to start learning Arabic and figuring out the direction to Mecca. I don’t want to do that.
Seriously, the problem with your analysis is that we are the sole truly world power in the world. Other countries have the luxury of being regional forces with only one ocean, a few borders, and a couple of enemies to worry about. We get the whole ball of wax, and if we quit doing it, the whole system will collapse like the Roman Empire.
The IJN started the war with a parity or even superiority with the US and UK Pacific fleets thanks to the Washington Naval Treaties. They had an advantage in CVs because they realized early that they were game-changers. Are we facing any enemies remotely approaching naval parity with us? Is there a “game-changer” technology we’re not exploiting? Our only military rivals right now are the Sov, er, Russians and the PRC and we have them pretty handily outnumbered (on the seas) for now.
Islam is a threat. But it is not a military threat. The Arabs are military incompetents; the same is true of most Moslem militaries, with exceptions for the Turks, and maybe the Persians. Moslem nations can’t even build their aircraft, armor and major naval vessels. They ARE threats diplomatically, demographically, and legally (their greatest victories are ‘Lawfare’). Our open society and their money makes us hideously vulnerable in that fashion.
If we ever cut loose with our full military power, the only thing Moslems can do is die in huge quantities. Their only effective weapons are lawyers, diplomats, “civil rights organizations,” the media, and scads of money. Unfortunately, these are proving very effective, indeed, and no number of CVNs will counter them.