TempestShadow;7939 Wrote:Further notation, I'm unclear precisely what concessions are potentially left to extract from the NPO in any case, no matter what way we move forward.
A valid point. What would our war goal be if we want to maintain the war?
I know many here are familiar with Paradox Grand Strategy games such as Europa Universalis or Stellaris, to name just two. In these games you always have to have a reason to go to war (casus belli) and have to determine a war goal (I.e. conquer province X etc.).
This formulaic view of war may be helpful in our case as well.
The casus belli in our case was pretty clear, the infiltration and undermining of the legitimate government of Lazarus. But what about the war goals?
I am not intimately familiar with the history of Lazarus before I joined the region in October 2018, when it was already under Imki's stable control. From what I know the NPO already made some concessions to Lazarus. Do these satisfy our original war goals? Did we even have any? If yes, are they still valid.
Of course one could formulate "total destruction of the NPO" as war goal, i.e. having them relinquish control of the Pacific, but we know we are nowhere near strong enough to enforce this. How strong is the APC? Could an invasion of the Pacific by military means succeed at some point in the future?
If the answer is no and we cannot get any other useful concessions from the NPO, then the only valid reason to prolong the war is for diplomatic relations with other anti-NPO regions and internal cohesion, though the latter effect seems to be weak in Lazarus.