User blog comment:Hippogriff12/The Scarcity of Racists in Skyrim/@comment-5302371-20120728161339/@comment-5135631-20120729171213

I admit the Empire has let quite a few provinces go with out a fight, but these were all at times when they couldn't do anything. Ultimately the goal of an Empire-and all Empires with it - is to establish a society over a multitude of countries based on conquering opposing nations in the first place. To establish an Empire, they need to conquer places. That is why they won't let Skyrim go quietly.

Ulfric attacked Whiterun because he knew how much pressure the Empire was putting on it. If he didn't attack them, they surely would have declared for the Empire sooner or later. If Balgruuf wanted to keep his circlet, his castle, and his throne, then he should have picked the right side. That's war, that's how it works. Obviously Ulfric wants a peaceful end to the conflict, but as a warrior he understands that bloodshed is necessary in this situation. He needed Whiterun and it's hold to give him more resources to take the country in the end and establish independence, it was the means to an end. Any decent commander isn't going to logically abstain from attacking arguably the most important location in the area which is considering joining said Commander's opponents simply because he/she doesn't like the smell of blood.

You may say he killed Torygg, but if he didn't, Skyrim wouldn't have had the opportunity to be free, because if Torygg wanted Skyrim to be free he would have declared independence himself. Instead, he dwelled in Solitude waiting for someone to do something about the Thalmor, clearly not seeing it as his responsibility to help Ulfric with his cause.

I'm not saying the Empire will definetly lose the inevitable second great war with the Thalmor, I'm just saying that even with Skyrim on their side they don't stand a great chance because of the way the Thalmor fight, through ambush. Furthermore, the Empire has already made the Thalmor stronger by kneeling to them, because now they know when the going gets tough they will surrender. There is no longer any good reason to keep Skyrim with the Empire, or even have an Empire; the provinces are stronger when they are represented on an equal level, rather than everyone taking their orders from Cyrodill. The Redguards proved this, and they also proved the Thalmor aren't invincible is you are allowed a little breathing room by your government to actually fight them. The Empire accepted that the Thalmor were winning the Great war and allowed them to win, when the Redguards, who also acknowledged the Thalmor were winning but decided to turn the situation around and send the Elves home with their tails between their legs.

You say I have no way for certain. No one has any way for certain of telling, but that doesn't mean we should go for the opposite of what I am saying. I don't have a university degree in warfare or anything like that, nor have I spent time as a soldier or a commander. In fact, I'm only a 16 year old boy, but I do read a lot of books about warfare, big hardback books and like to think I have a keen understanding of the nature of warfare (this might not sound like much, but it is), and have spent a lot of time thinking over the chances of an independent Skyrim's victory over the Thalmor in the short term compared to the Empire's in the short term, and the former's are more favourable in my eyes for reasons I've already explained on this blog and others.

When I say defeat, I don't mean in the long term, because that's a different story. I mean in the short term, kicking the Thalmor out of Skyrim and weakening them.