"As we learned last year, you don't necessarily need expensive aircraft to chase down and deal with a bunch of Pacho Villa's teenage Mexican bandits wielding Winchesters," ...... Secretary of War, February, 1917
Name one, single American-made aircraft that saw combat in World War One in 1917 and 1918.
You can't.
The U.S. was so unprepared for a "real war" that American pilots had to fly the left-overs that the French and the British allowed them to have. (Nieuports had a nasty habit of shedding wings during combat, so, the French gave them to the Americans so that French pilots could have first dibs on the sturdier SPADS).
In the next major naval war, possibly with China, we won't have the luxury of being unprepared.
Was the Stark or the Cole prepared? Was the Army prepared for after the fall of Baghdad? We we prepared at the start of the Korean war? How about GI wearing starched uniforms and white undershirts at the start of Vietnam? We we prepared to meet Rommel in North Africa?
When were we ever prepared for the war that came?