It can be both that in America we value sprawl and car-centered culture at great cost to ourselves, and that maybe it'd be nice if we pulled back on being world police a bit and invested more financially back at home. Maybe we could use all that money being spent on destroyers and forward bases to tear down all the stroads in the country and replace them with walkable mixed-use developments connected by rail.

In real life though, it's never that simple. Those destroyers and bases are being used for something even if it's stupid, and if they are no longer there, then things may change in unexpected ways.