I'm not averse to this.

For over 225 years, the peacetime mission of the Navy has been to project power overseas.  The deterrent effect of a large and powerful navy has been understood since at least the Phoenicians around 500 BC.  More recently, the British, WWI Germany, WWII Japan, the Soviets and now China and India had or are constructing blue water navies.  All the more reason for the US to project that power on the high seas.