I brought up Iraq because they went up against the vehicles I mentioned and got their butts whooped in the battlefield. You are literally arguing against human history over here. Yes, it’s easier to have a vassal/cooperative ally then go out and conquer the state. However, a country is not going to avoid destroying a hostile state because they don’t want to spend money on rebuilding it. We are talking about the US where we bombed the shvt out of Japan,Germany, Italy, and Vietnam and then proceeded to spend money on rebuilding them afterwards.