Was the Jimmy Doolittle raid a key to winning the war in the Pacific?

All through the Cold War period, starting after WWII, we were told that the USSR was planning an invasion of Western Europe. They had already taken Eastern Europe but they wanted all the marbles. They were going to come in with tanks, thousands and thousands of them, through the flat lands of Poland, from there into France and Germany and Spain, and just grab the whole thing.

HALF of our defense budget, we were told from 1950 up to the late 80s, was to prevent this big invasion that was coming Any Day Now. We had tens of thousands of troops stationed in Europe, many tanks, guns, trucks, bombs, all the stuff we'd need to repel this invasion. But when the USSR collapsed, when an invasion by the USSR was now less likely than an invasion from Mars, no politician seriously proposed that we might now cut our defense budget in half!

A few thought we might cut it by maybe 10-15%, a few thought we might cut the increases we make in defense spending each year. This was called 'the peace dividend'. President GHW Bush would have none of it.

"The peace dividend," he said, "is peace!" Democratic presidents have increased military spending a little slower than Republican presidents. Every Democratic president is accused by Republicans of 'decimating the military'.

Carter 'decimated the military', as did Clinton, as did Obama. Reagan DOUBLED defense spending, and GW Bush doubled it again (and that's not even counting the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq! He kept those off the budget so we wouldn't know how much they'd cost!) We have spent trillions on weapons systems that might have helped during WWII but are of no use today.

The B2 bomber, for instance, was an ultra-expensive airplane designed specifically for the role of 'mopping up' in the USSR AFTER the nuclear war. These airplanes cost $2 billion apiece, and their purpose was now totaly obsolete! The Republicans said 'Okay, we'll just make 40 of them.' The F35 costs about $130 million each, we've made 200 of them but apparently there's something wrong with the design, and they've never been used in actual combat.

Not to mention we threw $1 trillion on the bonfire to develop Reagan's missile shield that every credible scientist said would never work, and it never did. If you gather up all the countries in the world that might possibly wish to do us harm, we spend 16 times as much on weapons and military as all of them put together. What if we only spent 4 times as much?

That would free up hundreds of billions of dollars every year that we could use for things we need much more--schools, health care, infrastructure, etc. etc.

Pretty easy. End the wars and the empire, bring home all of our troops from around the world. America would cut hundreds of billions off of the budget and not effect our ability to "defend" ourselves if and when needed.

We can stop wasting billions on equipment even the military says it does not need, like more tanks.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.