Not a stockpile problem, although it may have that now, too, I don't know.

But it definitely has a replenishment problem. And so much technology has been shipped outside the United States. China is more akin to the US in 1941 (overwhelming ability to manufacture cheap weapons by the millions) and the US is more akin to Japan and Germany in 1941 (great weapons, but a serious inability to domestically sustain combat operations, and a potential inability to go a lot further in debt). Our military is fully ready to perfectly handle limited wars anywhere in the world, as we have been doing. But a war with another superpower may be more challenging. We need to restore domestic manufacturing capability. I look at US tariffs as a key way of doing this. Obviously it causes pain. The political issue is whether it is necessary pain or not. Trump thinks it is (and I agree with him). The Left does not think it is.

It it is just "populism," at least it is populism that is having positive strategic effects.