Ah, yes now you’ve jogged my memory about all the attempted expansionism in between. You make a solid case that they didn’t step outside of the expand-or-die dichotomy willingly.
The point I’m trying to make is that the third option was there (perhaps it wasn’t feasible before WWII, I’m not sure), but the third option (mutually beneficial trade and cooperation) ended up sustaining Japan from WWII to the present without the need for expansion.
The point of the post is that often there is often a third option outside of expand-or-die, and it’s worth questioning what that could be in any given problem. But thanks for all the very good points—I absolutely agree with you that there have been civilisations that have had to, or have seemed to have to, expand in order to survive. Thanks for your well-considered points, and the spot-on history (apologies for the patchiness of mine).
Ah, yes now you’ve jogged my memory about all the attempted expansionism in between. You make a solid case that they didn’t step outside of the expand-or-die dichotomy willingly.
The point I’m trying to make is that the third option was there (perhaps it wasn’t feasible before WWII, I’m not sure), but the third option (mutually beneficial trade and cooperation) ended up sustaining Japan from WWII to the present without the need for expansion.
The point of the post is that often there is often a third option outside of expand-or-die, and it’s worth questioning what that could be in any given problem. But thanks for all the very good points—I absolutely agree with you that there have been civilisations that have had to, or have seemed to have to, expand in order to survive. Thanks for your well-considered points, and the spot-on history (apologies for the patchiness of mine).