tlb wrote:War is not a purely economic proposition;
Dilandu wrote:War is not; imperialism IS. The colonial conquests must not cost more than they could bring, otherwise why conquer them at all? That's exactly why colonialism died out so quickly after World War 2; it stopped to be profitable, and colonial wars became prohibitively costly.
tlb wrote: You and cat were claiming the USA could never nuke Iran if it were possible for them to hit NYC or Philly back; I think there are other factors to consider before we can declare that to be true.
Dilandu wrote:No. I'm claiming, that such war would NOT be in any possible way profitable for USA in economical sense.
In the case of Haven: although the reasons presented in "The Short Victorious War" make it sound as though their expansion was for economic reasons; that cannot be completely true, because Haven would then introduce their Dole system which would ruin the benefit of the conquest. If Haven were convinced that the conquest of Toulon might be a big loss, but the effects of doing so would be an increase in people getting off the Dole to get in the navy (which is what happened after taking on Manticore) and an easier conquest of other worlds due to the example set, then Haven might well proceed against Toulon despite the economic cost.
Try to remember that this line of discourse was set by you and cat claiming that the Eridani Edict made conquest easy, so the Edict was not a good thing. You are now saying that pure economics can make imperialism unlikely. I am saying that unlikely is not impossible, because the decision makers operate on more than just economic motivations and they can be incorrect in any of their reasons, but once started may continue to forge onward (the sunk cost fallacy).
Finally the biggest colonial empire did end after WWII due to economics, but not in the way you meant: the British lost their empire because they impoverished themselves fighting the Germans. The US gave up the Panama Canal and the Philippines, but not for an economic reason. Only the French gave up colonies because of the economic cost of military action (perhaps I should include the USSR's actions in Afghanistan also, but then giving up Eastern Europe is a counterexample).
PS. Note the Eridani Edict would not stop the Dague from hitting the Haven home planet with as much damage as it possibly could. The League would not do anything because Toulon is already under Haven control. So how does the Edict stop a weak planet from threatening ultimate destruction in self defense?