David Johnson wrote:

> One might argue that the last war -- presumably the System States War
> -- was a disaster in no small part _because_ the Federation had such a
> large military yet faced no apparent external threats. Federation
> taxpayers -- they were all _Federation_ taxpayers before the War began
> -- paid to equip the System States Alliance with a rather substantial
> rebel military force.
>
> Arguably, if the Federation had a had a smaller military in the first
> place, the System States War, as a whole, would have been comparably
> less destructive (and the Federation's fiscal position likely would
> have been stronger going into the War, absent all that "unnecessary"
> spending on the military -- perhaps strong enough even to have avoided
> the War entirely using "butter" instead of "guns").
>
> From a taxpayers' perspective, there was a _tremendous_ amount of
> squandered "treasure" each time Federation and Alliance forces faced
> off in a major battle.

The size of the Federation military and quality of Federation
politicians were grist for the Merlin mill.

Foxx and Shanlee might have been pursuing the least destructive strategy
for the Federation based on Merlin outputs.