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For example, the report details what essentially is World War III. To ensure access to the space, the U.S. would attack China with...

"...long-range penetrating strike operations to destroy PLA ground-based long-range maritime surveillance systems and long-range ballistic missile launchers (both anti-ship and land-attack) to expand the Navy's freedom of maneuver and reduce strikes on US and allied bases and facilities…"

An influential think-tank has unveiled a vision of a future US Navy strike group composed of two aircraft carriers and supporting ships with 110 aircraft, including new requirements for a stealthy attack unmanned air system (UAS) and a manned fighter optimized for the air-to-air mission. The report released on 28 February by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments received the endorsement of Senator John McCain, the powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as the Trump administration and Republican leaders in Congress plot the shape of a new military build-up.

Hal Brands, a national security expert and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, DC, told CNBC News that the plan appears to include a suggestion for sending additional 4,000 to 5,000 US troops into Syria "in order to help accelerate operations around Raqqa in the next 6 to 9 months"…"It's not really Trump's style to give deeply detailed policy proposals when he's speaking publicly," Brands noted.

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, suggests, however, that more naval power could give Trump flexibility to operate in international waters, a move far less provocative (and one that requires much less infrastructure) than sending in U.S. ground forces.

If, for instance, the United States deployed Navy battleships to the Baltic Sea, Moscow would undoubtedly balk at the U.S. presence off its coast, but there is very little they could or would do about it, says Clark, who recently completed a study on the needs for a future naval feet. A deployment of ground troops to the region, meanwhile, would be seen as a provocation and a more permanent presence, he says. 

“Part of the discussion might be that the president may want a better negotiating position,” Clark says. “Having more military force at his disposal gives us more strength when bargaining with the Russians.”

Trump will probably conduct foreign policy as an extension of “the art of the deal,” the former tycoon’s negotiating principle, says Bryan Clark, a defense expert with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “I think he could react more aggressively than past administrations would for the purpose of strengthening his negotiating position down the road,” Clark says. Clark says Trump’s choices could include shooting down North Korea’s next test missile, providing lethal arms to Ukraine’s government, deploying U.S. anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe and conducting more aggressive naval operations near islands China claims as its own in the South China Sea.

"What that might look like is putting an extra 4,000 to 5,000 U.S. troops into Syria in order to help accelerate operations around Raqqa in the next 6 to 9 months," said Hal Brands, a national security expert and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C.