How many is too many?
Choose your preferred metric! If we assume that it's population, then I have to ask why with only 5x the population, the US needs 70x as many combat aircraft as the UK? Even on the suspect land mass metric, they've either got twice as many as they need, or we've got half the number we need.
From a naval point of view, the CIA World Factbook identifies the US coastline as only 1.6x that of the UK, so I have to ask if you're arguing that the UK needs 14 aircraft carriers, and nearly 400 frigates?
Doesn't necessarily mean they have too many. One can equally argue we don't have enough...
There's no "right" answer to that. Depends on which side of the equation one sits. That and threat landscapes shift all the time, suddenly an excess can become insufficient.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
