An America is not designed to take on China directly but 20 F-35's is more than enough for a short-term intervention into Africa, South / Central America, and most threats in the Middle East. Those are wars we are fighting right now and we bringing to bear conventional forces to an expeditionary war. We have enough strike carriers and the blue water navy capacity to defeat any head to head matchup with China.

What I am concerned about is the ability to continue project power into conflict zones, across the globe, with appropriate cost-consciouss​​ options.

Of course,​ there would be limiting factors. and positive​ and negatives. Loss of tanker aircraft and EW platforms would be a concern but we could limit this by buddy refueling or the much-anticipated​ tanker Osprey variant.