For the US to have the biggest navy in the world? Well you could start with the fact that the US has two very large coastlines to defend on opposite sides of a continent, requiring a two ocean navy. Then you have Hawaii, Guam, the Marianas and Alaska, all of whom were attacked from the sea in the last war and requiring a navy to defend them.
Add in the necessity to defend oil shipments to and from the Persian Gulf from both rogue nations like Iran and pirates and you can see why the navy is still so big today.
Another reason can be seen in the pages of World War Z where one of the main characters goes over the list of items that the US imported before the war and that now they cant get because every available ship is loaded with refugees and how that worked against the US war effort. We are very dependent on imports and if we had a small navy it would definitely open us up to having them cut in time of war.
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