Professor Wayne King-Meiouf of the University of ProximaIs the invasion of Kontai and Unatel Gamma 540 a sign the Clones are getting back in the empire game after several years of inactivity and internal strife? Or is it the last desperate hurrah of an unwieldly and crumbling empire?
Since the restoration of Oojok the Clones have been quiet externally, Benito has been allowed to get on with his far off rump of the empire while the HCS stayed out of the various emergencies like the Bolitic-ABBO War. Even the Clones' last war with the Xenon was fairly limited and had no strategic aims.
The Free Eritran States have always been a thorn in the empire's side though, and the Eritrans have known it. The Clones regard Molab et al as "unfinished business" (and indeed privately have cursed their decision not to annex them when they invaded the rest of the Eritrans years ago). The Eritrans of course know the Clones are a threat too hence the massive arms sales by the DDS to that area.
But the time to attack the Eritrans was a few years ago surely? Before Molab got its hands on a fleet of DDS warships? Also, the Clones have complained in the past that the empire was maybe too big already, so is adding yet more strain on transport links a good idea? A TYA transport - not the fastest of ships of course but the backbone of their transport fleet - going from the two furthest points of the empire - pre-latest additions - from Calantratia to Miliaris would take over 9 months! Kontai adds an extra 3 weeks on top of that.
The Clone Star Empire is not doing that well economically at the moment, a decade of growth has ended with inflation rising by 10% over the last year, unemployment is also rising especially off Cloneworld. The Clones say that a period of "economic reworking" is needed which is likely to mean more unemployment. Could it be it was felt there needed to be a nice diversion from internal strife?
The problem is though that invasions are expensive, neither of the two new planets are rich so there isn't much that can be looted. It is likely the HCS budget will need to be cut next year (and cut a lot), this begs the question as to whether this new expansionist policy can be sustained?
