Dale and Lake-town

I know. I am combining two separate things into one here. To me, this makes sense. The history of one is essentially the prehistory of the other and vice versa. Dale is destroyed and the survivors move to Lake-town. Lake-town is destroyed by literally the same dragon fighting literally the same dwarves. Those survivors then refound Dale.   It is unlikely that these cities would take a massive retaliation apporach. Neirther city seems to have enough military power to inflict the sort of death and destruction needed for that position. Thus, flexible response would have to do. Second, they like the dwarves would not want to destroy the trade links that they rely on. I would also suspect that mobilization means war. They cannot afford to mobilize men just to have them sit in barracks. That would destroy their economics. The militia system seems to allow pretty quick mobilization - we see that in Lake-towns response to Smaug and the Battle of Five Armies. But we see that they wait until the threat materializes before mobilizing. Thus, no preventative war. This makes sense given the lack of military power and need to keep people in their civilian roles.   A side effect of this is the no strike posture. With no real standing army, they cannot launch a powerful enough first or even second strike. Meanwhile, we see through their history and social structure that effective insurgencies are perfect fits for their strengths and weaknesses. Simply bogging down their attackers so that the occupation cannot be sustained would be ideal. Counter force attacks would have to be their main doctrine guiding operations, as the only value targets would be the same civilians and economic assets they would be trying to defend. In a similar vein, a low intensity conflict position reliant on border raids, special forces, decapitation strikes, guerrilla actions and commerce raiding would probably be their main means of war fighting.   Naturally, a weaker military power whose economy is based on trade would prefer diplomacy over brinksmanship to resolve problems. But Dale, with its greater power and proximity to the Lonely Mountain, would be better set up to use brinksmanship. I would imagine this would only be used in extreme cases though. It would also benefit Lake-town and Dale to obtain their goals though a habit of obedience, where people are simply used to operating peacefully with them. The means of coercion might be used at first and in exteme cases by Dale. Meanwhile the monopoly on trade would be their main weapon to achieve international objectives - mainly against the dwarves and elves who rely on their trade routes more.   The value placed on external stability would mean a desire to preserve the status quo. This also means Lake-town and Dale would bandwagon with the established superpowers. The Easterlings are established powers, but seek a maximal expansionist policy that would undermine the Northmen's trade, survival and territorial defense. This means that the established powers of Mirkwood and the Lonely Mountain would be the ideal parties to bandwagon with. Both of these are threatened by the same outside forces and are bound by the same trade interests. By extension, I suspect they would value external stability more so than any other secondary international priority. However, acting on this would mainly be limited to Dale - as it would be the only city with enough people and wealth to be active in international affairs.   Geographically, the Easterlings, Rohan, Mirkwood and the Lonely Mountain can reach either city. Militarily, all of them appear superior. But Rohan does not appear to have either the power or motive to attack. Mirkwood could be motivated to attack should the environmental destruction of the logging be too much of a problem. But it appears that the industrial activities of the dwarves would provoke that sort of conflict sooner than Dale's or the Lake-town.   Smaug clearly is the main threat to both Dale and Lake-town. But the Easterlings would be the biggest in terms of established states. Only the Easterlings appear to have the historical record, apparent motives and internal dynamics that would push them to invade. They would threaten mainly the territorial integrity of the region and its literal survival. The rest of the major powers are likely too far away or too weak to be much of a threat. The dwarf and elf kingdoms would be allies, so I doubt they would pose much of a threat. After all, there would be many trade and cultural links between the two. The Northmen would also prove to be useful buffers.   The Easterlings would be mainly regional, but are part of a coalition that is a global threat. It is a long range threat, as the internal pressures to expand would not have pushed them into the area at the time of the War of the Ring. It took Mordor's pushing for that attack. But it is quite high intensity and expanding. They are essentially a conventional, lethal military threat.