Stephen Sprunk wrote:
On 29-Jan-12 10:59, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Robert Neville wrote:
" wrote:

I don;t see how that is possible, considering that neither of them are
on any contiguous territory with other parts of the United States.

Are there any underwater tunnels between islands in Hawai'i?

Even if there were, it wouldn't matter as it would still be one state.
And of course were talking about the Interstate Highway System...

Trivia question (no fair Googling the answer): What was the primary
justification/purpose of the Interstate Highway System?

Those of you who answered movement of military troops within the
continental United States are good on the justification but wrong on
the purpose. It was the height of the Cold War.

NATO wasn't formed until 1949, the Warsaw Pact until 1955, and the
standoff between those two entities was the essence of the Cold War.

The Cold War began during Potsdam Treaty negotiations, the instant the bomb
was dropped on Nagasaki, intimidating Stalin into not proceding with the
Soviet invasion of Japan. Stalin chose not to call our bluff; we weren't
ready to drop a third bomb soon enough to prevent any Soviet invasion.

NATO was a symptom of the ongoing Cold War, not the provocation. There
was no anti-German reason to continue the occupation, but the Soviets
weren't going to end their occupation of the eastern sector of Germany,
so we weren't going to end our occupation of the Allied sector. NATO
merely formalized our fear of a renewed Soviet attack in central Europe,
and allowed us all to continue the occupation until we and the Russians
finally agreed to allow Germany to reunite in 1990.

Hotspots were Berlin (1948-49), Korea (1950-53), Berlin (1961), Vietnam
(1959-75), Cuba (1962), Afghanistan (1979-89), and Able Archer 83 (1983).

The Cold War wasn't without major warfare, but there never was a direct
confrontation between US and Soviet Union, and nobody went first to use
nuclear weapon in several wars that were essentially proxy wars. 'Tis
why we can have this nonsensical discussion on Usenet today.

In contrast, planning for a national highway network for defense
purposes reaches back to 1921, the first formal description of the
modern Interstate Highway System (though not by that name) was in 1939,
and the roots of the modern name can be seen in 1944's "Interregional
Highways". The plans languished, though, until Eisenhower pushed
through a funding bill based on his experience with the Autobahns during
WWII, which was completely unrelated to the Cold War that followed it.

For defense purposes in 1921? Uh, I'll agree that the earliest Moses
parkways were precursors, as were many early semi-limited-access highways
built in the 1920's, not necessarily influenced by Moses. But I never
read that history book you did.