"Traditionally" you built war machines knowing some of them are going to explode for one reason or another. You hope to get more utility out of it then if you could have gotten out of another system, ideally by complimenting your other systems. Losing 1 carrier is bad, but if it lets you sink 2-5 of Japan's carriers, its "worth it".

The problem is that modern (post cold war and back in the 1870-1930 period as well) military makes systems that aren't practical for the engagements they're in. Part of it is changing tech (dreadnaughts seemed like the big thing until cheap aircraft sank a few in WWI). Part of it is fitting your military for the conflicts you're in/expect to be in (late colonial Britian/France was used to fighting "lesser" foes not industrialized nations).

A lot of American systems are built for 10 billion billion dollars because they're assuming that they're going to be up against the Soviets/China/some European system. They "have" to be that expensive otherwise you're going to lose. The problem is, if your opponent gets lucky, or your system fails, or your opponent finds any flaw or builds a system that "just works", then you can spend 1000x more and still lose. Vietnam etal. almost taught us Yanks that you need some systems that aren't going to sink your budget if you lose them, but we're too dumb/proud to not spend the most on everything. (Also its a racket, etc, etc.)

So you end up spending a billion on a system designed to work in a different scenario, sold to you that its "actually more then you need, but then it'll work now and forever so you really are saving", and then gets destroyed because of course it does, you're fighting a war you (royal you, not you you) nerd.

TLDR: America falls into the pitfall all/most large organizations do. Assuming there is no point in smaller systems because you're too big to care about the little parts.