I would prefer that the United States scale back military spending while negotiating arms controls agreements with our major adversaries. Arms races are mutually destructive. They distort the economies and political incentives of all countries involved. They create a self sustaining loop of increasing capabilities and perceived threat from both sides, which sucks the political focus and productive capability into a black hole of unaccountable, blind militarism. Further, the cast off last generation weapons get fed to lower capability allies and proxies who go on to try to dominate their regions through one sided violence. Finally, given the existence of nuclear weapons, any move that increases the risk of serious violence between the US and its peer adversaries also comes with a risk of destroying human civilization.

Now you could say that we just have to compete to ensure deterrence. China is building hypersonic glide vehicles and autonomous drones so we have to also. Ask yourself if you trust your political leaders and the political leaders of all competing powers to use these weapons responsibly. I do not, so I think we should not build them.