The key to peace and stability is our maintaining a conventional force second to none which the Chinese would not dare test. I fear we are lacking this or heading in that direction. I've seen nothing from Bush similar to Reagan's expansion of the navy.
It's tough to compare today's Navy with the Navy of the Reagan era. We have fewer ships, but the weapons we can launch from aircraft and ships are so much more accurate and lethal than the weapons of the 80's. Even with fewer ships, we probably have much more effective firepower than we did 20 years ago. We just have to make sure nobody can disable or jam our GPS satellites, which guide so many weapons today.
What concerns me most is the military secrets that China has stolen from us, especially the ones we don't know they've stolen.