So long as America is the world's "policeman and bully", can it do better than just "keeping it open for business"? No military in the world will save us from a plutocratic insurgency, which is an economic field-of-play that suits Russia and China much better than it suits democracies.
It can do better than keeping it open for business but that takes time, the US unfortunately doesn't really know what to do without a bad guy. Before our rise to primacy it was to be the City on the Hill, then it was to be the Arsenal of Democracy against the Nazis then Communists. A policy centered around countering reactionary violent Islamic extremists does nothing to push us to be better and instead has made our national discourse more petty and vile.
As for the economic field of play the US has a lot of cards in it's decks. China has a lot of resources but is missing a lot too and doesn't span to have coasts on two major oceans. It's got a growing middle class that won't be content merely manufacturing the goods for others and eventually will want political power to match their new economic stability. Any sort of limited war with the US would put its ship based imports and exports to a complete halt that even it's Silk Road project won't be able to off set.
Russia on the other hand is really just a resource exporter, it's manufacturing skill is diverted purely to the military realm. There's no reason they can't make great cars, great commercial aircraft or anything for that matter but culturally they are still in opposition to the West and the US and trying to arm to contend with us. Their greatest ability is to shut the tap on fuel to a Europe that's stupidly shutting down nuclear power plants. The post Ukraine sanctions have definitely put a hamper on their growth and unsettled their elites with holdings abroad. Their strength is primarily in their willingness to push us to the brink to see if we'll flinch.

Strategy may be especially necessary when in its absence we lurch from one non-linear operation to the next, accomplishing enough to be narrowly satisfied but actively making the world a worse and more dangerous place.
I agree, playing whack a mole is not a good policy and certainly doesn't win wars. I disagree however on the idea that nothing must be done to help, the change however that we need to make is that the something we do cannot always be the military. The subtle economic and diplomatic methods that Trump hates are very effective without the backlash when we do something.
Overturning cruel dictators in favor of democracy is always good domestic policy but it does hurt our own interests as well. Though it's counter to our principles I feel it's better to tolerate the occasional Qaddafi, Saddam, or Assad as we have in the past. When they cross over into the vein of Pol Pot or start crossing our interests like Nasser then it is good we do something.
The weapons sales are not the goal of the policy but a result. Even then our domestic policies hurt us. We were getting the Afghan Air Force outfitted with Russian Mi-17 helicopters until our politicians noticed and put a stop to it even though it's the right aircraft for them as opposed to our UH-60s.

The sad thing is, without we'll probably reach our final exhaustion just when we're really needed.
I wholeheartedly agree. I fear a future when South Korea or Japan ask for our help against an overt threat and we instead abandon them to their fate and retreat to our 'island'.

What do you make of John Kelly's, um, pompous philippic a few days back?
Mixed feelings. I find it tragic that the man's death was so politicized by both sides. I don't think it really surprises anyone that a man with no compassion was bad at conveying sympathy to a be-grieved widow. That she had a congresswomen nearby when he called is just bad timing but that congresswomen has a right to speak as well.
The US Army itself covered up the friendly fire death of Ranger Pat Tillman for propaganda purposes and kept the family in the dark for years so it'd be nice for people like Kelly to not pretend that only the other do that.
As with everyone associated with Trump, Kelly came out as a smaller and lesser man by having to come and clean up Trump's mess.