Geopolitics of the Faction War: Why do the Horde and the Alliance Really Fight?

TL,DR: Lacking the safety nets available to the Alliance, the poor lands and the systemic shortcomings of the Horde condemns its population to chronic poverty, which brings constant social unrest with it. In order to cling onto their power, the Horde leaders fall into populist and accusatory rhetoric targeting the Alliance, which eventually forces them to start wars due to public pressure.Unwilling to help the Horde with its economic problems and unable to form a unified front in international relations bar warfare, the wealth of the Alliance is virtually worthless in times of peace. Once the wars start, it is used to hold onto whatever the Alliance already had, wasted to not lose wars that it could have prevented in the first place. At the end of the war, the Alliance is spent, once again unable and uninterested in helping the Horde. Thus the cycle continues.When it comes to the reasons behind the perpetual faction war between the Alliance and the Horde, unfortunately the conversation usually devolves into a blame game of "who started it". Regardless of one's opinion on the matter, however, two facts remain: Neither side is supposed to be bad. Neither side is made up of evil people doing evil for the sake of evil. And both sides manage to drop their quarrels and come together to fight greater foes.With these in mind, our question is then transformed: If neither side is evil, and both sides manage to work together, build bonds of camaraderie and come to understand one another, why do they keep falling back to killing each other? And the answer to that question lies in the political and economic structures and behaviors of these two factions.When the First Horde came to Azeroth, it was more than just a plot by the Burning legion. Beyond their schemes, there were two reasons compelling the Horde: Orcish homeworld Draenor was dying. They were suffering from a scarcity of basic necessities required to sustain their population. They were also in constant infighting. There was a need for an outside enemy to unite against. Much has changed about the Horde since those days, but these two aspects didn't really go away. Today, the Horde remains faction suffering from chronic abject poverty and social unrest. The reasons behind these conditions have several layers:The lands the Horde had settled on is mostly barren or very limited in resources required to sustain life. They are either really infertile or corrupted by the Scourge and/or other usage of weapons of bio-chemical warfare.Majority of the Horde population is made up of hunter-gatherer societies, not agricultural ones. Agriculture is the most crucial step in a society's survival and advancement, because it largely solves the greatest and the most basic problem for all living creatures: Food security. Agriculture means a community can produce its own food, in much greater abundance, in rather protected areas with a need to compete with other predators, and can do this reliably. Agriculture uses land, in terms of food production, much more efficiently and allows societies to store excess food for down times and potential future scarcities. Majority of the Horde's population lack this basic safety.Combined with the already poor lands, this causes most of the Horde's population to live under a constant threat of famine. Their control over their oen food supply is limited. Even if they have it good one year, they have no guarantees for the next year and even those who have it better the others on average, still have no safety. This creates a permanent fear of starvation, a very real and core fear of death. This fear then turns into frustration and anger, bringing social unrest with it, creating a volatile political atmosphere.These problems can actually be solved by enacting large scale reforms regarding core cultural attitudes and traditions of the Horde societies, along with major environmental remediation projects that could transform the poor Horde lands into cultivable soil. However, such fundamental changes to way of life and expensive, long term projects require a great amount of political capital. The type of political capital the Horde leaders simply do not have. Their power and control over their is so lacking, it can almost only be used to keep themselves in charge and nothing more:Baine Bloodhoof had to fight a civil war succeed his own father, less than 5 years ago. He had to get financial aid from an Alliance leader, Jaina Proudmoore, in order to rally an army.Lor'themar Theron is just a regent, appointed by the last monarch of a now extinct dynasty who turned traitor. He doesn't have the 7000 year old tradition of Sunstriders to support him and within 10 years, he was forced to order two pogroms, of High Elves and later Void Elves, in an already decimated society, simply because he cannot handle internal divisions.Orcs went through 3 leadership changes in the last 5 years and it looks like they will go through a 4th one BFA.The major Troll leader, who was also the Warchief of the Horde, Vol'jin, died after just one year charge, current leadership is in limbo.Gallywix is an uncertainty himself. His power relies on deceit, fear and money. He could rule for decades unchallenged or could go down in an assassination the next week.Sylvanas, who seems to be the safest in her position due to her almost deified cult personality among the Forsaken, still faced an open rebellion just 5-6 years ago. Furthermore, just a year after her appointment as Warchief, she is already facing political opposition within the Forsaken, in the form of an organization called the Desolate Council. And she was not a popular choice for Warchief among the Horde leadership in the first place.This insufficiency of power limits the options for the Horde leaders. Unable to provide real solutions to real problems, instead the leaders resort to populist rhetoric in order to consolidate their control and divert public frustrations away from themselves onto other parties, often onto the Alliance. This diversion, however, boomerangs onto the Horde leadership, in the form of a massive public pressure to wage war against the Alliance.So far, Thrall, who probably had the highest amount of public credit within the entire Horde leadership circle, is the only leader to attempt a substantial change in the way of life within the Horde, and it cost him. He also tried to turn the Barrens into a more cultivable land, but it took too long to tangible returns. As a result, when Cataclysm hit right after the Northrend campaign, taking the already stretched resources of the Horde to new lows, he faced the very real threat of an uprising, eventually forced to semi-abdicate. This situation set a dangerous precedent. Long term plans and challenges to the Horde societies' way of life are deemed as political suicide. Instead, it seemed better to shoot for short term glory and promise of wealth and victory through conquest. And it appears, after Garrosh, Sylvanas is adopting this approach as well, with the hopes that this time, the conquest will succeed and it will actually solve the economic problems the Horde faces. However, history suggests it is very unlikely to work:War is an expensive endeavor. Horde is already suffering from a scarcity of essential goods, and warfare only exacerbates this situation.The way the Horde wages war often destroys the very lands they are trying to take over, diminishing the returns they were supposed to get. Burning of forests, Blight bombing, mana bombing pretty much always renders the environment uninhabitable, nullifying all of their gains.Even when the Horde has short term victories, their systemic shortcomings that cause them to use land inefficiently mean they are unable to reap the benefits they need.Longer the war lasts, greater the toll it takes on its participants, both in terms of resources and in terms of psychology. Horde, being the side that is plagued by internal divisions and scarcity, often unravels as conflicts drag, its members turning against one another as their war effort collapse in on itself.With too much spent and not much gained, end of the wars sees the Horde population exhausted. This exhaustion brings a short lived peace as people try to rebuild. However, with the problems that started the previous wars unresolved, tensions begin to rise once more, perpetuating the cycle.At this point, even if the Horde were to have all of Azeroth to themselves unchallenged, they would still face widespread famine and internal turmoil within a few decades. The core of the Horde's problems lies within itself, as well as its solution, however, the political willpower needed is nowhere to be found.On the other side of the medallion, we have the Alliance. The problems they face are completely different from the Horde, yet they have no smaller part in the seemingly endless cycle of war between factions. Because if the Horde is the side starting all the wars, the Alliance is the side failing to keep the peace.As an institution and a society, the Alliance is as stable as stable gets in a world like Azeroth:Wrynn dynasty has been ruling Stormwind for centuries and are quite popular.Prophet Velen is the unquestioned religious and political leader of the Draenei, who just recently managed to deliver the victory over the Burning Legion.Gelbin Mekkatorque has been ruling over Gnomes in what is an elected position at least for decades.Council of Three Hammers itself may be a new and shaky organization, but the individual leaders and their control over their respective tribes are mostly unchallenged.Tyrande Whisperwind has been ruling Night elf nation for over 10000 years, lead them through several global and interdimensional wars, winning all of them. Her political capital is so much that she managed to force several fundamental changes to the extremely rigid Night Elf society just within the last decade and bar for a personal vendetta from Maiev Shadowsong, she is practically unopposed.Genn Greymane is the only one who can be said to have a weak position, due to the civil war his nation had just 5 years ago. However, that war ended with the rebels rejoining him and his current rule has the support of both Stormwind and Night Elves.From an economic standpoint, average Alliance citizens have better living standards than their Horde counterparts. The lands the Alliance controls are made up of mostly lush forests and fertile fields. Pretty much all Alliance societies are agricultural ones, providing greater food supply and food security. Along with the magics available to them, they are able to use the land much more efficiently and preserve it for a long time, achieving vital sustainability. Not everything is peachy, as proven by the crippling poverty in Westfall, yet even with on of its former breadbaskets rendered fallow, neither the kingdom of Stormwind nor the greater Alliance suffers any overreaching effects. Yet for all of its wealth, for all of its political stability, Alliance projects almost no soft power:The past pains weight heavily on the Alliance nations. Distrust and even outright enmity towards the Horde is in abundance. This makes the Alliance unwilling to extend a helping hand to the Horde, even though doing so would be of greater benefit in the long term.As a military alliance of independent nations, the Alliance lack unity and coordination in all forms of policy other than warfare. Unable to put forth a united front in trade and other international relations, all of its power is divided, often used in unrelated areas and sometimes on opposing ends.This lack of coordination combined with the lack of willingness, means that the times of peace are times of inaction for the Alliance. The inaction means they are unable to affect the Horde and its politics in any shape or form, as a result, all of the decision making lies in the hands of the Horde.With decision making ceded to the Horde, the Alliance loses the initiative to them in every single conflict. Forced into a reactive role due to its own lack of direction and will, the Alliance starts every war on the back foot. As a result, all of its accumulated wealth is used to catch up to the Horde, dissolving the advantages the Alliance had on paper.With its wealth used up to not lose wars, the Alliance is unable to bring decisive ends to conflicts. When it all ends, they focus on rebuilding themselves and regress back to a state of international inaction. Once again unable and unwilling to help the Horde solve its chronic problems, the Alliance loses the opportunity to eradicate the very core reasons of the faction war, continuing the tragic cycle.When she was the Lady of Theramore, Jaina Proudmoore did try to use soft power in order to establish a lasting peace between the Alliance and the Horde. Her city was open to trade and transport for Horde merchants and other non-military Horde citizens. She acted as an intermediary between the fledgeling Kalimdor Horde and the Night Elves, helping the Horde secure trade deals essential for its survival. She secretly provided monetary funds to Baine Bloodhoof in order to secure and stabilize the Tauren nation. She acted as a guarantor between two factions in order to preserve the trade deal between the Horde and the Night Elves as well as the old peace deal. However, since she was the only one taking these steps, in the end her efforts were insufficient. So far, no other Alliance leader showed anything close to her cooperative attitude.With all of these in mind, we can come up with a road map for long lasting peace between the Alliance and the Horde:The Horde leadership needs to bite the bullet and push for the systemic reforms and soil remediation projects.The Alliance leadership needs to move past its old grudges and support the Horde leadership, both financially and politically, in these endeavors.Leaders on both sides need to avoid giving into populist and inflammatory rhetoric, and instead actively push against such movements, by force if necessary.Mutual partial demilitarization is essential to both reducing tensions and relieving funds for the Horde to use on social security policies.Whether these strategies will be applied or not, we cannot know. With a known advocate of peace as the High King of the Alliance, end of this coming war in BFA could see a break from the cycle for the better. Or the situation could escalate to the point where devastating magics and weapons bring about the danger of mutually assured destruction, forcing a regressive stalemate where both sides spend their resources to upkeep ever-hungering war machines. Or, one side does win and utter devastation follows for the other, leaving Azeroth in ruins. Or they repeat what they had already done after all the former wars, and fall back into the same habits and brew in their frustrations and grudges until it is time to clash once more. We shall see.TL,DR: Lacking the safety nets available to the Alliance, the poor lands and the systemic shortcomings of the Horde condemns its population to chronic poverty, which brings constant social unrest with it. In order to cling onto their power, the Horde leaders fall into populist and accusatory rhetoric targeting the Alliance, which eventually forces them to start wars due to public pressure.Unwilling to help the Horde with its economic problems and unable to form a unified front in international relations bar warfare, the wealth of the Alliance is virtually worthless in times of peace. Once the wars start, it is used to hold onto whatever the Alliance already had, wasted to not lose wars that it could have prevented in the first place. At the end of the war, the Alliance is spent, once again unable and uninterested in helping the Horde. Thus the cycle continues.Sources: Chronicle Volume 2, Cycle of Hatred, The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm, Wolfheart, Tides of War, World of Warcraft (game) World of Warcraft (comics), Before the Storm (sample chapter), Battle for Azeroth Alpha and datamined content.