You assume that to accomplish something, you need to do it yourself.
I don't make other people do things for me, when I can do them myself. To many people spend ages in Battlemaster waiting for some one else to make something happen, and it rarely comes about.
Friends and wealth allows one to do much without ever doing it yourself. Our dependence on others isn't a weakness, it's our greatest strength.
It's mediocrity, nothing else.
If we had been self-dependent in terms of food, we'd likely have been an isolationist realm, and one day the Lurias would have invaded us and nobody would have given a crap. Isolationism isn't a viable long-term strategy.
That depends on what you hope to achieve, but I assume you mean to survive indefinitely. I don't know, to an extent I think Aurvandilan style isolationism may have the edge, with our backs against a wall of our choosing always at war or on the verge of war, it breeds a strong, unified realm and a well disciplined army, and Aurvandil has at least shown our military power gives us relative impunity to just about any given coalition in Dwilight. Though, it's not quite applicable to D'Hara in its current form, you'd need to drastically change your realm composition and geography rather than just being sprawled out across the central south.
but that's like capturing someone and telling them "Tell you what, we'll just cut off your left arm, and then we can be friends. You are right-handed, so it's not like you really NEED that arm anyways. It's just more dead weight you carry around!"
Well, I offered friendship without the terms and D'Hara wasn't interested. Evidently I had to cut of an arm so D'Hara would learn to appreciate the other and realise their position.
