Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-25343239-20150319182007/@comment-32014963-20180323104709

No, the "bloody Whiterun guards can't end the Civil War" or they wouldn't have asked the Empire for help when the Stormcloaks attack.

You are looking too superficially. The Aldmeri Dominion/Thalmor is looking at the end game, those fights the Empire won are nothing. They are winning the less visible but far more significant fights in the greater grand scale of things.