Autolykos: “The strawmanning occurs from assuming that B would necessarily “win” if he collects “advanced weaponry” and that “the loser of a serious dispute is never going to submit to punishment if he has superior firepower”. However, there is no certainty here or with anything else in the future.”
Notice that I wrote, “serious dispute”. Of course if you get ripped off on ebay for a few hundred bucks you’re not going to go to war. I’m talking serious disputes. The most obvious being murder. Someone accused of murder and sentenced to death or life in prison is not going to comply if they have superior firepower. It’s not about economics. It’s self preservation.
Dispute resolution is fundamentally differerent from trade. Trade is a win-win situation that does not involve the use of force. Dispute resolution requires the use of force (or the threat of it). That’s why you can’t leave dispute resolution to the free market. The free market can’t force the resolution on a powerful party.