No. There was a definite command failure in those two incidents.
The USS Stark was complacent. The CO had identified an unknown aircraft and, after it failed to answer to his hails, the CO kept on hailing it instead of immediately preparing for possible action. He was recommended for court-martial but, instead, got away with a reprimand and early retirement.
In any case, how well did being unprepared turn out?
The USS Cole was an example of idiotically placing a valuable military asset out of its element where it was as vulnerable and helpless as a tiger in the open ocean or as vulnerable helpless as a beached killer whale.
In the open ocean, a ship is in it's element such as an M1A2 Abrams battle tank is in its element in open tank country. Anchoring such a warship in a hostile port surrounded by water traffic is like driving an M1A2 Abrams tank into a narrow, Old City alley where it is at the mercy of any teenager with a Molotov cocktail within an arm's throw of the ventilation system.
Was the Army prepared for after the fall of Baghdad?
Was the occupation of Baghdad a time critical situation against an enemy that could destroy your entire fighting force or merely a bothched mopping up operation after the decisive battles of the war were won? If the answer is the latter, then it costs a few hundred or a few thousand lives, and not the entire war, when you pull that Homer Simpson.
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?
No, we were not.
My point is that, in terms of military history, those examples are the equivalent of the Age of the Dinosaurs.
Back in those ancient wars, the U.S. Navy had uncontested control of the sea lanes and if the U.S. had its clock cleaned in the first few land battle, you had the luxury of a "Mulligan". In terms of projecting power to the North American continent in 1942, Nazi Germany may as well have been located in Mars. If the U.S. screwed up,it had the luxury of leisurely building up its forces until, well into 1944, you finally launched a decisive invasion force against Germany.
Those days are over.
In all of America's wars, only Great Britain ever dominated the U.S. Navy. (In spite of annoying American frigate victories, the Royal Navy kept U.S. shipping tightly blockaded in the War of 1812.)
After the war of 1812, only the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific ever seriously challenged the U.S. Navy in war.
Ten or twenty of twenty five years from now, the challenge to the U.S. Navy will not be mid-20th Century carriers with propellor-driven aircraft or armed Somali teen-aged pirates in skiffs taking advantage of the squeamishness of the West to sink their skiffs and their mother-ships on sight.
The challenge will be a robust, 21st Century ChiCom Navy that will be ready.
When and if the balloon goes up, that battle will be brutal, short and DECISIVE.
In the future of the 21st Century, against China, the ancient days of screwing up and then taking a Mulligan will be over. The U.S. will get only one chance to get it right.