John Mearsheimer doesn't understand the problem.
I spoke about it for years--some gaps, such as in air defense or missilery the US will not be able to close, because as I type this, this gap continues to grow. It is measured not in years but in generations. This is, as an example, the result of misguided and illiterate approach to air defense based on... air power. You have to literally undo the whole thing, and this requires not just building some facilities, but a complete rethinking of America's defense or, rather, "offense" philosophy which doesn't work. It never did. This is impossible in the present state of the American geopolitical thought without rethinking the United States as it perceived itself in the last hundred years. The US has no courage, intellect and will to do so because it leads to a destruction of America's mythology.
So, the US is stuck. So, it is good that John Mearsheimer understands parts of it, but he doesn't understand the heart of the matter. After the US strategically and operationally "planned" VSU's "counteroffensive", the question of the competence of the US military establishment arose and was answered--it is incompetent! It will take a generation or two to even teach those who are currently in the plebe years in US service academies to think properly and within the framework of America's REAL military and industrial capability. This REAL capability has nothing in common with the US halcyon years of WW II and after and it is not coming back. Russia will not allow the US to unleash the war in Europe while thinking that the US can sit this one out again behind the ocean. Doesn't work like this anymore, especially with the construction tempo of Russia Navy's subs such as 3M22 Zircon carriers Yasen-class subs and frigates which already have Zircons deployed. These are technologies the US simply doesn't have and are nowhere near of getting them. China can rely on them, and much more from Russia in case of the US deciding to commit suicide, the US cannot.
It is grim picture of corruption, financial and, most importantly, intellectual within the US military and foreign policy establishment, and what John Mearsheimer fails to understand--these are not just some pieces of hardware whose utility the US suddenly recognized. Nope, the REAL experience of SMO is way more than technological, it is above all operational and strategic, which made Russia's General Staff a well-oiled machine which merely uses 404 as a trap and a junkyard for NATO's military capacity, because Russia fights not Ukraine, she fights NATO, and NATO, and the US, are in panic. In the end, Washington cannot do strategy, it has no real strategists--only whiteboard doctrine mongers, who will fail again to learn proper lessons, because one has to have a proper tool kit. The US doesn't have one. Good luck "containing" China.
P.S. I'll probably do podcast with my friend Colonel Vladimir Trukhan, and possibly with my other friend Colonel Oleg Shalandin fairly soon. I may also twist hands of some of my classmates--they are very humble people--to drag some of them to the podcast too. That depends, though.