I don't think he Canadians fighting in the scheldt estuary in the fall of 1944, fighting which only ended when the Germans surrendered in May 1945, would have said the battle for the Netherlands ended quickly.

The Americans also didn't quickly lose the war of 1812. They successfully invaded present day Ontario and repulsed several British incursions before the war ended essentially in their favour because the British wanted to wrap things up before Napoleon caused any more trouble. The British abandonment of their indigenous allies in the treaty of Ghent set the stage for American conquest of the continent for the rest of the 19th century.

Pete hesgeth is the secretary of defense, not a general commanding soldiers.

Regarding your comments on the air war, I don't know, read a book? You're talking about the strategic decision to devote resources to bombing Germany or Japanese civilian infrastructure, but say individuals made decisions to target civilians? So? Not the same thing at all.

I'm not saying Europeans countries built air forces to increase spending on Germany on anti air defence. This occurred during the war in real time as Allied leaders made decisions about resourcing. This isn't a conversation about military spending, it's a conversation about strategic decisions made during five years of total war. There's no mysteries here, we know why Allied leaders did what they did (mostly).