Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-3539474-20130910213054/@comment-10207438-20130915221131

Honestly, I'd go with Hammerfell's Defensive strategy, but I side with the Stormcloaks; the AD has no way of invading skyrim, in the Great War, they only reached the Imperial city, and that was with the largest elven army in all known history, which was later completely annihilated when the empire decided to pull out practically every legionnaire in tamriel (leaving hammerfell almost completely undefended) to save a single city that has canonically been conquered and reqonquered hundreds of times.

The Imperial army focusing almost entirely on Cyrodiil is a threat to everyone they swore to protect by removing most of their armies and leaving them all but defenseless.

So, I doubt the AD forces would reach past Hammerfell/Cyrodiil, at least not within 100 years and extreme losses ; and I have no doubt that the Thalmor would be unable to reach the northern countries from the sea, even with the 'largest/strongest navy in tamriel' for many reasons, either they'd leave their islands rather exposed to an imperial/redguard navy or their smaller fleets would be picked off by redguard and Breton navy/pirates; they could always go the eastern route, but that would take so much longer, and they'd have to pack enough supplies to last them a landing on at least morrowind, landing in argonia might be seen as a threat, and a threat to the argonians is dealt with without much effort, especially on water, they'd need probably a dozen argonians to wipe out an AD fleet by tearing holes in ships and massacring anyone who seeks refuge by swiming; and who knows what would happen in Morrwind, the Dunmer were transformed from Chimer because of a war trying to stop the Dwemer from achieving Divinity through Sacrileges means, would they view the Thalmor as Sacrileges(?) if they do their is no way the AD fleet will be able to resupply without another country waging war upon them. Then their's the waters of the sea of ghosts that could destroy the AD ships on their own if they're acting up, and they'd have to pass near the waters of morrowind which might have tons of ash and stone raining upon them.

in other words, Skyrim and Morrowind are almost untouchable, Argonia IS untouchable, HighRock is safe from land attacks but might fear a large scale invasion by sea, Cyrodiil is easily conquerable from both land and sea, and Hammerfell is easily defendable. If The empire asks nicely I believe Skyrim and Hammerfell would aid them and/or allow HighRock to aid them from the AD threat; Hammerfell wouldn't need much more assistance to defend the average AD army; Skyrim as I said is almost untouchable, and they hate the AD with enough passion that they'd send many troops to aid Hammerfell and maybe the Empire.