In this case you don't need to divine his intent because the strategic advantage is self-evident. If I'm playing soccer and the ball touches my hand before entering the opposing goal, then the goal doesn't count. By having a cooling off period, you nullify the advantage and maybe even create a disadvantage for the seceding and parent realms, which is ok because it's self-imposed. If they don't like it, they can wait until the war is over to secede.
That is fine, since the creators of the rule intended it to function that way. The argument here is that Tom intended otherwise, which is why there have been so few punishments for strategic secessions compared to the amount of accusations (before the magistrate system was around mind you). Of course only Tom can confirm or deny this, everything else is based on assumption, and as we all know from long practise with this system, the chances of most people reconsidering the situation based on these discussions approaches nill.
