It is possible there are significant internal issues that became impossible to manage any longer unless fronting the need for a justified massive military offen

It is possible there are significant internal issues that became impossible to manage any longer unless fronting the need for a justified massive military offensive to distract the locals from something they were otherwise becoming preoccupied with. I do not foresee there being individuals who really hunger for acquisition of materials in that same way anymore as in the old days. These days, those energies are channeled almost entirely into acquiring as much valuable IP as possible and building the most bleeding edge platforms these days, which is usually good for the user/customer/consumer/investor/everyone. Fortunately, humanity's taste for that old type of aquisition has dwindled. I think the Internet and Democracy and the American Constitution have succeeded and some places that never wanted those things to succeed now need distractions at home so their populations don't start expecting the same types of possibilities or freedoms. People noticed what changed during the pandemic and after and suddenly everyone is demanding the same type of lives and opportunities and freedoms that the free people of the West have, especially in the United States... so some places became less stable than others and needed to drum up nationalistic fervor to feign justification for a war in order to try to stymy the changing tides at home. It's like when Boris Yeltsin visited a supermarket in the USA and couldn't believe what he was experiencing here versus what he expected to experience based on what he was primed to believe, versus what he experienced in his own home...that story alone when he went back contributed a lot to the eventual downfall of the USSR when people learned the truth. I think what's happening right now except at a much larger and unavoidable scale because of smartphones and social media and more easy access to the open international web where everyone can see how the world works.