Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-25343239-20150319182007/@comment-260563-20180323082930

There are no fights that the AD won. Socially, people just hate their guts. Religiously? They just pissed off one of the Nine Divines by outlawing his worship. Militarily? They lost a massive chunk of their army just to take a province they couldn't hold (two if you count Cyrodiil) as well as raise an uprising in Eastern Skyrim that even Whiterun guards can put down. And as Blademaster Jauffre states, the Thalmor are desperate for items of power, like the Eye of Magnus, dragon priest masks, and Stalhrim weapons. They wouldn't bother with such underhanded shenanigans if they were winning. They'd just roll over the Empire and make more demands upon the Emperor like "pay us five million septims a year or else we attack!" That's what victorious countries do to defeated ones: they force tribute at the point of the sword, and the Dominion can't even manage to do that. They're too busy killing Wood Elves and getting their men killed in places like Hammerfell and Skyrim.

Except the Summerset Isles aren't better off. They gained no advantage in the war. Their taking of Cyrodiil, which they achieved by catching the Empire by surprise, was thwarted by the Empire retaking the province and annihilating their armies. Hammerfell, their only real gain from the war, was lost to a bunch of guerrillas. The only REAL thing they got from the war was causing the Skyrim Civil War, and as we've already discussed, the bloody Whiterun guards can end that.

There is evidence that the Summerset Isles didn't use soldiers from other provinces-just look at their armies! In all the lore surrounding the Great War, as well as what we see from Skyrim, there are no Bosmer or Khajiit soldiers in the Dominion's main forces. All Altmer. If that wasn't the case, we'd be seeing Bosmer and Khajiit forces among the Justiciars. We'd be seeing Nords shitting on the Khajiit for being allies of the Dominion instead of shitting on them for being Skooma dealers.

So yeah, the Dominion isn't doing well at all. They're in much shakier ground than the Empire, which can recover faster from war and has no shortage of cash to splash around.